Penny & Pip

by Candace Fleming (Author) Eric Rohmann (Illustrator)

Reading Level: 2nd − 3rd Grade

A little girl finds a lost dinosaur baby roaming the halls of a museum and is determined to give it a home in this sweet and charming picture book.

Penny feels certain that something is following her down the hall as she walks with her class through the Natural History Museum. She looks--nothing. She looks again--still nothing. She looks one more time and spies a verrrrry long neck and a verrrrry long tail on something that looks suspiciously like a baby brontosaurus! Penny might be only five, but she knows dinosaurs are extinct. And yet, one seems to be following her. The little dino and Penny spend time together all over the museum, and when Penny doesn't see a giant adult dinosaur lumbering around, she realizes Pip--as she's named him--must be on his own. The only thing to do is to feed him some snacks and take him home with her...if she can figure out how.

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$18.99

Kirkus Reviews

Starred Review
A warm and welcoming ode to creativity and friendship. 

Horn Book Magazine

Starred Review
Like Pip, this openhearted invitation to imagination is a keeper. 

Publishers Weekly

In this sanguine work from longtime collaborators Fleming and Rohmann (Honeybee), young Penny is the lone witness to a dinosaur egg's hatching during a class trip to the Museum of National History. As Penny, portrayed with brown skin, tours the dinosaur exhibit, the baby sauropod tags along, undetected by anyone else: he perches watchfully on a model of Earth as Penny walks through a solar system diorama, successfully begs for scraps from Penny's sack lunch, and earns the name Pip for the squeaky "Pip-Pip" sound he makes. When the two return to the dinosaur hall for one last look, Penny has a realization: If they're surrounded by remains of dinosaurs who "lived long, long ago," who is going to take care of Pip? Coupled with Rohmann's pencil and digitally colored art, which conveys soft black lines and velvety textures, Fleming's calm, reportorial tone creates a lovely, almost old-fashioned openheartedness. And the story's resolution, which involves a smartly executed subterfuge in the museum gift shop, speaks to self-assured Penny's steadfastness in applying clever logic to the fantastical. Ages 4-8. Agent (for Fleming and Rohmann): Ethan Ellenberg, Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency. (June)

Copyright 2023 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.

Review quotes

Young readers will be thoroughly charmed by the text's absolute faith in this future. Rohmann's loose strokes of black colored pencil, digitally colored, position his characters against uncomplicated, mostly white backgrounds that keep the focus on their emotional connection. Like Pip, this openhearted invitation to imagination is a keeper. —Horn Book Magazine, *STARRED REVIEW* July/August 2023 Issue
Candace Fleming
Candace Fleming is the author of more than twenty distinguished books for children including The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion, and the Fall of Imperial Russia, winner of, among other awards, the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Nonfiction. She received the NCTE Orbus Pictus Award and a Sibert Honor for Giant Squid. Her most recent book with Holiday House is Honeybee. She lives in Chicago.

Julie Downing has illustrated over forty-five picture books including The Fire Keeper's Son, Tessa Takes Wing and First Mothers. She has won many awards including a Parents Choice Award, the New York Public Library's Best Books Award, APAAL Best Illustrated Book and the Irma Black Silver Medal. Her work has been featured in the SCBWI Original Art Show.
Julie teaches illustration to undergraduate and graduate students at the Academy of Art University. She lives in San Francisco.
Classification
Fiction
ISBN-13
9781665913317
Lexile Measure
-
Guided Reading Level
-
Publisher
Atheneum Books
Publication date
June 20, 2023
Series
-
BISAC categories
JUV039060 - Juvenile Fiction | Social Themes | Friendship
JUV002060 - Juvenile Fiction | Animals | Dinosaurs & Prehistoric Creatures
Library of Congress categories
Dinosaurs
Friendship
Animals
Infancy
Picture books
Friendship in children
Museums
School field trips

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