Frank’s Red Hat by Sean E. Avery (Walker Books Australia, 32 pages, ages 4-8). Frank has more ideas than your average penguin, and although they don’t always work out as planned, he keeps trying. When he shows up wearing a red hat before, the other penguins are skeptical, having never seen the color red before. He hands it to Neville for a closer look, and by an unfortunate coincidence, Neville gets swallowed by a killer whale at that very moment. The other penguins back away immediately, and a disappointed Frank drops that hat on the snow. Thinking the color may have been the problem, Frank creates a variety of other hats, but the penguins reject them all. Finally, he gives up, only to unexpectedly discover that the seals have been picking up his discarded hats, and they love them! This encourages Frank to keep creating, and on the last page, he’s shown unveiling his latest invention…the scarf.
Seven: A Most Remarkable Pigeon by Sandra Nickel, illustrated by Aimée Sicuro (Candlewick, 40 pages, ages 4-8). When a baby pigeon arrives alone–usually there are two pigeon eggs–his parents try to make up for it by giving him the name Seven, considered lucky in the pigeon community, since the farthest a pigeon has flown home is 7,000 miles. Seven has an excellent sense of smell and gets great joy from collecting flowers and eating rice. His parents, who collect straw and twigs and eat bread crumbs like the rest of the pigeons, frown on these activities and try to get Seven to conform. And the rest of the flock is horrified when Seven doesn’t learn to home right away, instead following the yummy smells all around him. Seven tries to be like the other pigeons, but it makes him sad. When the flock gets fogged in by clouds after a long journey, Seven’s keen sense of smell brings them home again, and the other pigeons begin to see the value of Seven’s uniqueness. Includes additional information about pigeons.
Both of these books use humorous storytelling to teach important lessons about being true to yourself and honoring your own unique gifts. Although they’re quite different from each other, I loved the illustrations in both books portraying Frank’s and Seven’s urban and Arctic environments.
