The Truth About Penguins

Meg McKinlay (author)

Mark Jackson (illustrations)

Walker Books, Australia: 2010

ISBN: 9781921150487

Genre: humour, picture book

Issues: identity

Some new arrivals are expected at the zoo and the other animals are very excited - and so the gossip begins. After all, everybody knows what penguins are, don't they? They're the great flyers who go south every winter, stopping only for pepperoni pizza on their way to spend their days lazing about in the sun in their super-cool bathers... aren't they? Speculation is rife, until the keeper steps in to set them straight - except that perhaps the facts aren't quite as absolute as he thinks...

This is McKinlay's first picture book and she's been fortunate to be partnered with an experienced artist who obviously understands her sense of humour. Jackson's detailed illustrations carry a clever and funny concept well and truly off the page with bright colours and enormous energy of line. A number of Australian and New Zealand native animals are readily identifiable as are more exotic creatures, making the illustrations an excellent language stimulus. The reader is drawn into the zoo community, as the rumours about the penguins spread. Children will delight in the suggestion that humans see is only a fraction of the animals' reality - that, as with the creatures in Madagascar (DVD), their zoo life is mostly performance; behind the scenes things are quite different.

Great fun, this is a book that will delight readers of many ages.