Puffling Patrol (Adventures Around the World)

by Ted Lewin (Author)

Puffling Patrol (Adventures Around the World)
Reading Level: 4th − 5th Grade

Ted and Betsy Lewin travel to Iceland to learn about the Puffling Patrol, a group of children who rescue lost puffins and return them to sea.

Every April, the Westman Islands off the coast of Iceland become home to hundreds of thousands of puffins, small black-and-white seabirds with colorful bills. They spend the summer on the rocky cliffs of the islands, caring for their newly hatched chicks. By the middle of August, it is time for the young puffins, called pufflings, to make their way to the sea. And that is when the children of The Puffling Patrol are called to action.

Ted and Betsy Lewin have journeyed to the Westman Islands to experience The Puffling Patrol's endeavors firsthand. In the company of Erna, Dáni, and their father, they drive through town at night, carefully searching for confused little birds that have glided down onto the streets instead of out to sea. Will the children find the pufflings before the birds encounter danger? Will the pufflings ever make it to the sea to spend their lives with other puffins in the North Atlantic Ocean?

The fascinating story of this unique annual rescue, combined with Ted Lewin's dramatic paintings and Betsy Lewin's lively field sketches, is sure to make Puffling Patrol a hit with animal lovers of all ages.

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School Library Journal

Gr 2-5—The Lewins are on the road again, this time traveling to the isolated island of Heimaey, just off the coast of Iceland, that is home to about 4300 people and one of the largest puffin populations in the world. They are here to chronicle the annual ritual of the rescue of young puffins that become disoriented during their maiden flight to sea and instead land in town, unable to escape without assistance. The first third of the book offers good background information, but reads like an adult travelogue: "From our airplane window we see the mist-shrouded Westman Islands...." The child-centered drama kicks in when the text turns its focus on eight-year-old twins Dani and Erna, part of the puffling patrol that rescues the young birds and then releases them. Ted Lewin is a master at depicting light and shadow, and his majestic watercolor paintings effectively display the windswept vistas in cool blues and greens and indoor and nighttime scenes in warmer tones. His concluding sequence of spreads of the pufflings' successful release is breathtaking. These larger vistas work harmoniously with Betsy Lewin's more informal, loosely composed pen-and-ink field sketches that fluidly capture the antics of the comical seabirds. Handsomely designed, this inherently engaging story sends an important message about the difference the island children make in helping save just one precious puffling. It covers the same rescue introduced in Bruce McMillan's appealing Nights of the Pufflings (Houghton, 1995), with more background information on the island, its volcanic activity, and the current plight of the pufflings (there has been a decrease in sand eels, their main source of food). A comprehensive glossary and pronunciation guide to the Icelandic words round out a handsome package.—Caroline Ward, The Ferguson Library, Stamford, CT

Copyright 2012 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
Ted Lewin
Ted Lewin's career as an artist began with illustrations for adventure magazines, but over the last thirty-five years he has devoted all of his time to writing and illustrating children's books. Look!, his first I Like to Read(R) book, won the Correll Book Award for Excellence in Early Childhood Informational Text. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Classification
Non-fiction
ISBN-13
9781620141878
Lexile Measure
910
Guided Reading Level
-
Publisher
Lee & Low Books
Publication date
October 20, 2014
Series
Adventures Around the World
BISAC categories
JNF051150 - Juvenile Nonfiction | Science & Nature | Zoology
JNF003030 - Juvenile Nonfiction | Animals | Birds
Library of Congress categories
-

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