Puffin's Year

In wonderful color illustrations and entertaining, informative text, author/illustrator Katherine Zecca tells the story of the life cycle of one puffin family, showing children how and where puffins feed, how they raise their young (called pufflings), and how they defend themselves.

In wonderful color illustrations and entertaining, informative text, author/illustrator Katherine Zecca tells the story of the life cycle of one puffin family, showing children how and where puffins feed, how they raise their young (called pufflings), and how they defend themselves.

Publishers Weekly

The rugged seabird known as the "clown of the ocean" lands on the pages of this nature chronicle, the first book that illustrator Zecca (River Song) has written. Painted in deep greens and gray-blues, it focuses on the nesting and chick-rearing habits of the Atlantic puffin when it comes ashore for a few weeks each summer. A conversational narrative tells the story of a mating pair as they fight off seagulls, claim a burrow and hatch their puffling on a remote island nesting colony. "Whee-er-er, whee-er-er! the puffling cries because he is hungry. Mama puffin arrives and lays her mouthful of live fish close to the front of the burrow." Readers glimpse inside the chick's snug, dark temporary home in several close-up spreads, which are some of the best in the book for their intimacy and realism. The darker values that dominate many of the scenes (dark green vegetation against dusky skies) often give the paintings a stark, flat feel. A somewhat didactic endnote from the director of the National Audubon Society's Project Puffin concludes the tale, asking readers to, among other things, "stay informed about conservation issues and to vote for environmentally responsible lawmakers." Ages 5-8. (June)