Penguin and Pinecone - Hardcover

Salina Yoon has written and illustrated more than 100 books for children, including Toys and Rock & Roll Colors (Scholastic) and Opposnakes (Simon & Schuster). She lives in California with her husband and two sons.

PreS-Gr 2-When a curious penguin stumbles upon a pinecone, he doesn't quite know what it is. It doesn't seem to be a snowball, or an egg, or anything to eat, but it does seem to be very cold. Penguin knits it a scarf and thus begins a beautiful friendship. The cartoon illustrations are done with thick rounded lines, bright colors, and plenty of white space to give this story warmth and personality. Pinecone, overall a fairly quiet friend, visibly shivers, says "brrrr," and even starts sneezing. When Penguin's grandpa advocates taking him to the faraway forest where he can thrive, Penguin puts his own loneliness aside for his friend's well being. Though they can't live in the same place, the two remain close always. The spare text and clean illustrations, done in a nice variety of spot art and single and double pages, work well for sharing with a group while the tale provides great opportunities for talking one-on-one. A lovely story of a caring and unselfish friendship.-Julie Roach, Cambridge Public Library, MA α(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.