365 Penguins facts for kids
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| Author | Jean-Luc Fromental |
|---|---|
| Original title | 365 Pingouins |
| Translator | Maggie Lehrman |
| Illustrator | Joelle Jolivet |
| Cover artist | Joelle Jolivet |
| Country | France |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Children's literature, picture-book |
| Published | 2006 (Naïve Livres) (French); 2006 (Abrams Books for Young Readers) (English) |
| Media type | Print (hardback) |
| Pages | 44 (unpaginated) |
| ISBN | 978-08-1094460-2 |
| OCLC | 70176775 |
365 Penguins is a 2006 children's book by Jean-Luc Fromental and illustrated by Joelle Jolivet which tells the story of a family who receives a penguin each day for a year. It was a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Award winner.
Plot
On the morning of New Year's Day a family receives an anonymous package containing a penguin and a note which says "I'm number 1. Feed me when I'm hungry."(pages 4,5) The family then receives a penguin a day for 365 days. The book discusses the problems the family experiences, including feeding and housing penguins, and in Summer, heat (which the penguins don't like), noise and the smell. After a time, the family appears to accept their lot, "You live penguin. You think penguin. You dream penguin. You become penguin."(pages 34,35) By the time of New Year's Eve there are 365 penguins in the house and the family is forced to celebrate outside. After midnight Uncle Victor, an ecologist, arrives and explains that the penguins' South Pole habitat is shrinking due to melting ice caps so he decided to introduce them to the North Pole. But as endangered species can't be exported he sent the family a penguin a day, alternating between a male and a female. Uncle Victor then takes all the penguins except Chilly, a cute penguin with blue feet, who the family agrees to look after. The story ends when the next day a very large package arrives containing a polar bear and a note similar to the first penguin note.
In education
365 Penguins is in The Reading Agency's Chatterbooks Winter Activity Pack. and appears throughout the world in school and government reading lists. It is also used to teach mathematics.
