Blue Penguin

PreS-Gr 2—Blue Penguin feels and acts like a real penguin, but he isn't black-and-white like all the others, and for this reason, he's ostracized. At night, he dreams of rescue by a beautiful white whale, and each morning, he sings to the whale across the ocean. This catches the attention of a little girl penguin, who ventures close, asking to play and learn his song. His lonely days are over. Meanwhile, Blue Penguin is unaware that his song is magically calling the whale to him. Horáček cleverly represents this concept with an image of the white whale like a shadow across the moon. Richly hued blues and greens create an enchanting polar landscape, with splashes of white forming snowy scenes that are sometimes reminiscent of those in Eric Carle's Dream Snow. Paintings that have been cut and pieced back together add dimension. An occasional image of a red-orange sun grows larger as the book progresses, until eventually it completely fills the horizon.