Little, Brown Books for Young Readers Polly and the Puffin: 1

If you love the Little Beach street bakery books, get this one for your kids

Suite au succès du macareux Neil, dans la trilogie de Jenny Colgan, "The Little Beach Street Bakery", l'auteur a pris la décision de lui consacrer une série de livres pour enfants. Car si les adultes ont pris tant de plaisir à lire les intrigues de Polly et Neil, autant que les enfants puissent les apprécier aussi ! Dans cette histoire, "Polly and the Puffin" (le premier de la série), nous avons la rencontre entre Polly enfant, et Neil, et de nombreux autres évènements (similaires à ceux des romans pour adultes, mais adaptés par l'auteur). L'histoire est courte, et mignonne. Les illustrations sont jolies, l'imagerie maritime domine. Le livre est divisé en plusieurs parties : l'histoire (50 pages environ), des recettes à faire en famille, des blagues et des activités créatives, le tout en lien avec les macareux. C'est distrayant et éducatif, parfait pour les enfants ! 2 autres albums ont été écrits.

Polly lives with her mother in a house by the sea.One day during a storm a little puffling (reading the story I learned, puffling is the name for a baby puffin) crashes through their front door window. The poor little bird is now lying on the floor, because he has injured one of his wings.After a bit of careful First Aid and some food (the kids will learn, don’t give the wild animal your sweets, but food which is healthy for them), Polly and her mummy take the next day their unexpected guest to the vet.The friendly vet is satisfied, the puffling is doing well so far. Now he gets a name, Neil, and because Neil needs still more looking after, Polly is allowed to take the baby bird back home and care for him, until he is fit enough to go back where he belongs, in the wild by the sea together with other puffins.It’s difficult for Polly to accept that she will have to let go of Neil at some point. We see the two enjoying cheerful adventures together, with Neil causing quite a bit of chaos.Finally the day has arrived and Neil has grown enough and is now strong and healthy and can fly again. With a heavy heart Polly and her mother take the puffin to a sanctuary. There are lots of other puffins and we can see Neil joining them, flying high in the sky.Polly is heartbroken. Her mummy buys her a toy puffin, but it’s not really a replacement for Neil and she calls it the “Wrong Puffin”.Time goes by and the winter arrives with storms and snow. Polly hasn’t forgotten her Neil. She sits for hours at her window looking for the little friend, but he is nowhere to be seen.One morning in early spring she finds a black feather on her windowsill. Polly believes it’s a sign from Neil, but is she right?Has the puffin really come back?The author has created a lovely and warmhearted story for young children. Reading it, the kids will also get a good idea, what to do and better not to do with a baby bird, especially one, which normally lives in the wild.The illustrations tie in beautifully and are cleverly kept in black, white and orange colours, because that way the little puffin really stands out.But the book offers so much more than just a lovely story.There are two recipes included, one for iced buns and one for puffins (no, not the seabirds, it’s a combination of muffins and pancakes).Then there are a few pages of puffin jokes and finally there are ideas for puffin/bird related activities.All the pages at the end of the book (recipes, jokes, activities) also offer interesting puffin fun facts.This is the first book in the series and it works well as a standalone, there’s no cliffhanger at the end, but I'm really looking forward to read more of Polly and her Puffin.If you want to read them in order, the next books in the series are: The Stormy Day: Book 2, The New Friend: Book 3.I found Polly and the Puffin a wonderful treasure trove, which offered me the chance to first read the charming story to my preschool puffins and then we went on to the activities and created a paper plate puffin. Just perfect.Five happy puffin eeks from me.

Jenny Colgan is one of my favorite authors and this little book is very sweet, short but very sweet. Our neighbor just returned from Iceland and brought my granddaughter a stuffed puffin so I bought her this little book not even thinking that I had just read two of Jenny's books that featured Polly and a rescued puffin. I was quite surprised when my little one said the puffin's name was Neil - what - that was the name of the puffin in the book I had just read - too funny!!

If you like Jenny Colgan books for yourself, this is a must for your kids!

This is such a gorgeous story perfect to read to my 5 year old. I’m such a Jenny Colgan fan but this is the first of her children’s books I’ve read. After the story there are joke pages, recipes & craft activities to try which my daughter was very excited to find. I totally recommend it.