You'll learn about how penguins hunt to feed their family, and spend days at a time away from them to find the food.
You'll also find out how penguins find a mate and build a home.
One of the most interesting things you'll discover is how well penguins can adapt. In this story, they do this when humans change the penguins' environment.
One penguin sees the potential of a new breakwater built near the penguins' hunting grounds.
The breakwater is closer to their food source, and the lone penguin decides to build a new burrow there. All he needs is a mate. That one penguin's foresight led many others to follow him and create a new colony.
The Accidental Penguin Hotel is inspired by the fairy penguins, also known as little penguins, who moved into their very own 'penguin hotel' on the breakwater at St Kilda.
At the back of the book you'll find additional information about the story and the penguins, in a note from the author, Andrew Kelly who is the Yarra Riverkeeper. There's also a calendar letting you know what penguin activities usually happen throughout the year. Andrew is passionate about the environment and that shines through in this book.
Dean Jones' has created beautiful, colourful illustrations which capture the penguins at work and play, swimming and hunting, building a burrow, and exploring the world. They offer many perspectives, including the penguins underwater with surfers, boats, and other activities above water. I have lots of favourite pages, including when a female penguin chooses to take a chance and inspect the new burrow, and the final spread with two penguins in silhouette, watching the people and city at night.
The Accidental Penguin Hotel is a wonderful narrative non-fiction story perfect for penguin lovers, and will help all readers to appreciate the natural world and the clever and resilient creatures that inhabit it.
Download teachers' notes from the publisher's website.
Title: The Accidental Penguin Hotel
Author: Andrew Kelly
Illustrator: Dean Jones
Publisher: Wild Dog Books, $ 24.99
Publication Date: September 2021
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 9781742036281
For ages: 3+
Type:
Junior Non-Fiction
