Judy Sierra - Antarctic Antics: A Book of Penguin Poems

This book has some fun poems about Emperor penguins. The illustrations that go with them are well done and can sometimes be funny. For example, in A Hatchling s Song the dad penguin is thrown backwards as the chick comes out of the egg, although the next image with this poem has an awfully evil looking chick (or maybe it s just me and the fact that I the Regurgitate poem the chick really goes about bossing around his dad). One of the cuter poems, at least in my opinion, is I am Looking for My Mother, which is about a little chick figuring out who his mother is based on the sound she makes. There is even one that is a series of riddles that leaves the ending blank for you to guess the answer, which is shown when you flip the page. I love how the poems give the penguins an attitude and a voice, as the poems are all told as if a penguin was writing or saying them. The poems are more than just fun to read with kids, but they also based in fact and thus you can learn about Emperor penguins as you read the poems. This makes it a good fun book to include in a unit on penguins and/or Antarctica for early school age kids (kindergarten to second is the age range I most recommend in a classroom setting). Perhaps have the kids write their own penguin poems after hearing the poems in this book.