Small Readers: Little Penguin's New Friend by Laura Driscoll, illustrated by Tadgh Bentley

This is less a review than a "why aren't there more cool easy readers?" meandering complaint. So, this is part of a series, there are picture books, board books, and easy reader adaptations. Laura Driscoll is one of those easy reader authors that turns out a nice, steady stream of competent titles. Bentley debuted the "Little Penguin" character in 2015 and although I'd never heard of it before, it seems to be fairly popular.

In this particular story, Little Penguin tells the readers that he is waiting for a polar bear to visit. He's never met a polar bear before, but his friends all tell him that they are scary, have sharp teeth and loud roars, and they tell bad jokes! When the polar bear arrives, she doesn't seem so bad at first, but then she starts telling jokes... In the end, Little Penguin realizes you can't believe everything you hear and to give new friends a chance.

The art is washed out, muddy watercolors. This may be just in the easy reader versions, since I've seen Bentley's art in picture books and it's brighter, clearer, and more sharply defined, but this looked as though it had washes of gray over most of the picture. The animals are kind of oddly shaped and the polar bear has the typical "female" long eyelashes. The book is a level "K" so for intermediate readers, with typical bold text on a white background.

There's nothing "wrong" with this exactly, it just felt meh to me. Typical story, bland art, etc. Nostalgia of course, but I remember with longing the quirky easy readers of my childhood, Morris the Moose, Ellen Blance's Monster, and the classics like Little Bear and Frog and Toad. There are plenty of awesome easy readers, but it seems like there's a lot more blah titles. And maybe that's ok - kids have to read a lot just to build fluency and I'm probably forgetting all the meh titles of my childhood, not to mention I was a quick reader and started reading more challenging titles very soon.

Verdict: This is filler - books you add to keep your shelves filled in and to provide extra reading material for kids to practice. There's nothing particularly outstanding, good or bad, about it and it's not the first choice, but when you need more it's there to fill in the corners.

ISBN: 9780062699954; Published October 2019 by Balzer and Bray; Purchased for the library