PENGUINS!

This new entry in a series of popular animal books describes and illustrates 13 species of penguins, flightless southern hemisphere birds with dark backs and white fronts that spend most of their lives at sea. Opening with an explanation of similarities and differences among the penguin species, and a list of where each lives, Pringle goes on to describe their locomotion, feeding habits, adaptations for the prevailing temperature, habitats, courting, nesting and nurturing, growth and development, and enemies, including changes in their natural world due to global warming. Henderson’s naturalistic watercolor illustrations fill the pages, sometimes with boxed insets on top of larger scenes. Although the Antarctica-focused map’s geography is slightly inaccurate, the drawings of the different species are clear and carefully labeled, illustrating the variations described in the text on each double-page spread. Enthusiastic and wonderfully informative, this will grab readers and listeners alike. (Nonfiction. 7-10)