Here are 100 books that The Great Penguin Rescue fans have personally recommended if you like
The Great Penguin Rescue.
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I’m a penguin expert, TED speaker, and lifelong animal lover. After getting a BS degree in Animal Science, I became a Penguin Aquarist at Boston’s New England Aquarium. For 9 years, I took care of the penguins there and educated visitors during daily talks. In 2000, I helped manage the rescue of 40,000 penguins from an oil spill in South Africa. (With the help of 12,500 volunteers, we saved most of them!) I founded my educational company The Penguin Lady in 2005, and speak at schools, universities, libraries, for TED-Ed and TEDx, and on National Geographic’s ships in Antarctica. I love sharing my knowledge, and passion for penguins with others!
This charming book gives a very comprehensive overview of the life and breeding cycle of the Emperor penguin. And it does so in simple - but entertaining - language, making the information very accessible for younger children. The large, graphic illustrations on each page are very eye-catching, and are sure to engage young children. (Even younger than the recommended age range for this book.) While this book talks about the many challenges that both parents face during the long breeding season, it focuses more on the male penguin’s job of incubating and protecting the egg while his mate is off at sea for two months. (The next book on this list focuses on the female penguin’s job during the breeding season.) Best for ages 4-8.
All the other wild creatures have left the Antarctic. The wind is too cold and the sun does not shine during the long, dark months of winter. But the father emperor stays behind with thousands of other fathers. Each of them takes care of an egg . . .
Follow as a penguin grows from egg to adulthood in the coldest place on earth
In the middle of winter, in the coldest place on earth, the mother emperor penguin lays her egg. The father rolls the egg onto his feet and keeps it warm. He doesn't eat or even move…
Twelve-year-old identical twins Ellie and Kat accidentally trigger their physicist mom’s unfinished time machine, launching themselves into a high-stakes adventure in 1970 Chicago. If they learn how to join forces and keep time travel out of the wrong hands, they might be able find a way home. Ellie’s gymnastics and…
I’m a penguin expert, TED speaker, and lifelong animal lover. After getting a BS degree in Animal Science, I became a Penguin Aquarist at Boston’s New England Aquarium. For 9 years, I took care of the penguins there and educated visitors during daily talks. In 2000, I helped manage the rescue of 40,000 penguins from an oil spill in South Africa. (With the help of 12,500 volunteers, we saved most of them!) I founded my educational company The Penguin Lady in 2005, and speak at schools, universities, libraries, for TED-Ed and TEDx, and on National Geographic’s ships in Antarctica. I love sharing my knowledge, and passion for penguins with others!
This captivating book details the female Emperor penguin’s extraordinary journey during the long breeding season. In gorgeous prose - that includes detailed information very rarely found in other children’s books about this species - author Sandra Markle shares remarkable insights about the many challenges faced by the female Emperor penguin in preparation for raising her chick. This includes a long trek across sea-ice to the open ocean, where she hunts for two months to fill her belly with food for her soon-to-be-born chick. The beautiful illustrations help young readers visualize the many different aspects of her journey. I can guarantee that nearly every adult who reads this book with their children or students will also learn many details about Emperor penguins that they didn’t know before. Best for ages 4-8.
Acclaimed nonfiction author Sandra Markle presents the daring story of a mother emperor penguin's struggle to reach the sea, find food, avoid predators, and make her way back to her mate and their newborn chick before they starve. Alan Marks' luminous illustrations highlight the harsh conditions and stunning landscapes of Antarctica.
I’m a penguin expert, TED speaker, and lifelong animal lover. After getting a BS degree in Animal Science, I became a Penguin Aquarist at Boston’s New England Aquarium. For 9 years, I took care of the penguins there and educated visitors during daily talks. In 2000, I helped manage the rescue of 40,000 penguins from an oil spill in South Africa. (With the help of 12,500 volunteers, we saved most of them!) I founded my educational company The Penguin Lady in 2005, and speak at schools, universities, libraries, for TED-Ed and TEDx, and on National Geographic’s ships in Antarctica. I love sharing my knowledge, and passion for penguins with others!
This wonderful book is informative, very comprehensive, and visually stunning. It covers everything from the first recorded penguins, to their locations, their feeding and breeding behaviors, their predators, and the various threats to penguins - both historically and in the present. But this is in no way a dry, “just the facts, ma'am” book about penguins. The scientific information about penguin biology and behavior is told in a very engaging way, and it is enhanced by absolutely gorgeous and lifelike watercolor illustrations. This book provides a thorough, age-appropriate overview of the lives of penguins, and is one of my favorite books for both the content and the beautiful illustrations. Best for ages 7-10.
Laurence Pringle's fascinating and informative book, with stunning illustrations by Meryl Henderson, introduces young readers to the life and behavior of one of nature's most remarkable-and most popular-birds. The seventeen species of penguin come in all sizes and live in a surprising range of habitats. Readers familiar with the emperor penguin that stands almost four feet tall and lives in the Antarctic may be surprised to encounter the little blue penguin that's only about sixteen inches high and hops ashore into the green forests of southern Australia and southern New Zealand. This book is packed with such a wealth of…
Twelve-year-old identical twins Ellie and Kat accidentally trigger their physicist mom’s unfinished time machine, launching themselves into a high-stakes adventure in 1970 Chicago. If they learn how to join forces and keep time travel out of the wrong hands, they might be able find a way home. Ellie’s gymnastics and…
I’m a penguin expert, TED speaker, and lifelong animal lover. After getting a BS degree in Animal Science, I became a Penguin Aquarist at Boston’s New England Aquarium. For 9 years, I took care of the penguins there and educated visitors during daily talks. In 2000, I helped manage the rescue of 40,000 penguins from an oil spill in South Africa. (With the help of 12,500 volunteers, we saved most of them!) I founded my educational company The Penguin Lady in 2005, and speak at schools, universities, libraries, for TED-Ed and TEDx, and on National Geographic’s ships in Antarctica. I love sharing my knowledge, and passion for penguins with others!
This beautiful book is written by a famous penguin expert who wrote the ‘bible’ about penguins for adults, so you can be absolutely certain that all of the information is 100% accurate! (Which, unfortunately, is not always the case for books written by individuals who aren’t penguin experts. That said, you can be assured that every book on this curated list has extremely accurate information about penguins!) Each species in this book has a page with fact sheets, geographical ranges, and biological details. There are also numerous photos and absolutely gorgeous illustrations that are highly detailed, bringing the author’s words to life in a visually engaging way. This is the perfect book for children who want to take a deeper dive into the lives of penguins. Best for ages 9-12.
This illustrated guide to penguins includes profiles of emperor penguins, king penguins, adelie penguins, chinstraps and gentoos, rockhopper penguins, macaroni and royal penguins, fjordland snares island and erect-crested penguins, yellow-eyed penguins and jackass penguins.
My passion is writing about ordinary people doing extraordinary things, rather than famous people or people with some unusual skill, like being a math genius or something. This passion led me to Anna Merz’s story and my growing appreciation of the power of the animal/human connection and how much communication can take place without language.
Okay, I confess this is the same story as the recommendation above, The Elephants Come Home, but this is written by the actual guy, Lawrence Anthony, who undertook this effort.
Also, instead of a picture book, it is a 380-page tale told by the person who lived it. If you love The Elephants Come Home, you’ll want to read Elephant Whisperer as well.
I found myself exclaiming again and again over the stories that Anthony tells of life on the sanctuary.
When South African conservationist Lawrence Anthony was asked to accept a herd of "rogue" wild elephants on his Thula Thula game reserve in Zululand, his common sense told him to refuse. But he was the herd's last chance of survival: they would be killed if he wouldn't take them. In order to save their lives, Anthony took them in. In the years that followed he became a part of their family. And as he battled to create a bond with the elephants, he came to realize that they had a great deal to teach him about life, loyalty, and freedom.…
I’ve been in love with animals my whole life. I loved them so much in fact, that I wished to become one, whether it was a sea otter, wild horse, or a dolphin. Today, I’m fortunate enough to not only write about animals, but I also advocate for their protection as an ambassador for Wild Tomorrow and Defenders of Wildlife. As co-founder of the Children’s Book Creators for Conservation, I help other children’s book writers and illustrators connect with conservation stories in the field. I hope you’re as inspired by these books as I am!
I love true stories about animals. This is a beautiful story of a conservationist (Lawrence Anthony) who rescues a traumatized herd of elephants in danger of being killed. Tomsic and Hooper show us how compassion, kindness, and a little bit of patience can form the strongest of bonds.
Anthony was a well-known conservationist in South Africa who developed a special bond with these rescued elephants. His unique connection with these pachyderms has been passed down to new generations of elephants and the rangers who protect them.
The back matter offers more information about Lawrence Anthony, the elephants he protected, and the game reserve in South Africa where they and their offspring are thriving.
The amazing true story of a herd of elephants, the man who saved them, and the miracle of love that brought them home.
One day in 1999, Lawrence Anthony and Francoise Malby hear that a herd of wild African elephants needs a new home. They welcome the elephants to their wildlife sanctuary-Thula Thula-with open arms. But the elephants are much less sure they want to stay. How will Lawrence prove to them that they are safe and loved? What follows is a gorgeously illustrated real-life story of a friendship . . . and the story of the miraculous way that…
I am a Canadian author/editor who both fears and loves being a stranger in a strange land. I fear the challenges, the feelings of dislocation and vulnerability. But I love the connections, the overcoming of the strangeness and the ultimate feeling of kinship. As a mom, I travelled with my kids to far away places, favouring adventure tours and staying well away from high priced hotels that separate tourists from locals. My novel, The World on Either Side, was inspired by a trek I took with my then fourteen-year-old daughter in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Molope’s twitter profile features my favourite Toni Morrison quotation (one I want used in my obit, when the day comes), so I had to buy this novel.
Its core is about doing, or not doing, the right thing. I loved the writing, the moral complexity and the exploration of strangeness from the point of view of Naledi, a young teen, living in post-apartheid South Africa. She has moved from the bottom, a place of outhouses and rocks, to the top, a place of fountains and statues, and then discovers her brother is also a stranger. But then she warns us early that the township Marapong is a place you arrive at after "experiencing that unnerving feeling of being lost in a strange country with a strange language.”
What does a teenage girl do when she sees her beloved older brother commit a horrific crime? Should she report to her parents, or should she keep quiet? Should she confront him? All her life, Naledi has been in awe of Basi, her charming and outgoing older brother. They've shared their childhood, with its jokes and secrets, the alliances and stories about the community. Having reached thirteen, she is preparing to go to the school dance. Then she sees Basi commit an act that violates everything she believes about him. How will she live her life now?
My mother’s family is descended from both Afrikaner and English South Africans, and the inherent tension between those two groups has always fascinated me. From Olive Schreiner’s The Story of an African Farm to Andre Brink’s Devil’s Valley, books that examine the reclusive, defensive, and toughened attitudes of white settlers make for the kind of discomforting reading that I find immensely compelling.
Untangling the roots of Apartheid is a thorny challenge, but Marq de Villiers’ approach—of telling the story of the Afrikaners, or South Africa’s “white tribe,” through one family’s complex and troubled history—does an excellent job of explaining the mentality that creates hateful systems of oppression.
This is a history of the Afrikaner as seen through the history of one family, the de Villiers, who first moved to South Africa in the 1600s. The book traces the history of the family and the Afrikaner, showing how the Afrikaner acted at the turning points in their history and revealing how that has made them what they are today. It also charts the development of the hallmarks of apartheid, including the pass system and tribe mentality. Journalist Marq de Villiers includes memorable scenes from the family's history culled from the diaries and papers.
Like the character of Wala Kitu in Dr No, I consider myself an expert on nothing. Heroes have to be flawed, right? And you don’t always have to like and admire them. They don’t have to be perfect. With perfect hair and teeth. Because I’m not. And I need someone to identify with. Someone to walk the roads I might or might not walk. A list of Nick Hornby, Michael K, Miles Jupp, Billy Liar, and Wala Kitu shouldn’t belong together. But they do. Right here. It’s absurd, right? The connection of different roads? Different stories? Different hurdles to jump? Different act of heroism I say.
It's not an easy read, but I read this one and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road back-to-back. These are two books about lost souls walking away from something, not knowing where they’re going.
Michael K is another character who invokes more sympathy/pity than admiration. Sometimes, I didn’t overly care about Michael K’s suffering, feeling he’d brought it on himself. Mostly, though, I wanted him to find his simple peace.
JM Coetzee is such a good writer. His sparse but full sentences always deliver something.
From author of Waiting for the Barbarians and Nobel Prize winner J.M. Coetzee.
J.M. Coetzee's latest novel, The Schooldays of Jesus, is now available from Viking. Late Essays: 2006-2016 will be available January 2018.
In a South Africa turned by war, Michael K. sets out to take his ailing mother back to her rural home. On the way there she dies, leaving him alone in an anarchic world of brutal roving armies. Imprisoned, Michael is unable to bear confinement and escapes, determined to live with dignity. This life affirming novel goes to the center of human experience-the need for an…
I grew up during the apartheid era of racial segregation and oppression. A Blade of Grass was written with a sense of exile and regret, but also with love. It is not overtly about South Africa and apartheid. It asks a fundamental question: Where is home, and how shall we live there?
I read this novel in university in a course taught brilliantly by the scholar WH New. It was the first time I understood the complexity of layers in great literature. Ostensibly about a businessman who buys a farm, it encompasses race relations, power in all its guises, sexuality, relationships to nature, and how character influences personal destiny. Written with outrage and compassion.
I kept The Conservationist in mind when I wrote my own book as an example of what a novel could be, but more than that, it taught me how to think about the world in a new way.
Mehring is rich. He has all the privileges and possessions that South Africa has to offer, but his possessions refuse to remain objects. His wife, son, and mistress leave him; his foreman and workers become increasingly indifferent to his stewardship; even the land rises up, as drought, then flood, destroy his farm.
