Jonty Gentoo
by Julia Donaldson; illus. by Axel Scheffler
Primary    Scholastic    40 pp.
10/24    9781546134206    $18.99

Jonty Gentoo is a young penguin who is content in his zoo home until his aunts’ tales of the South Pole awaken his desire to explore. “He longed for the snow / and he dreamed of the Pole. / ‘To reach it,’ he said, / ‘is my one dearest goal.’” Jonty escapes his enclosure and swims to a distant land of snow and ice, surely “the land of the penguins.” A polar bear regretfully informs Jonty that he’s arrived at the North Pole. A migrating Arctic tern redirects the lost bird, and “the bird in the sea and the bird in the sky” travel to the South Pole, where Jonty is welcomed by “a heart-warming huddle of gorgeous gentoos.” Donaldson and Scheffler’s latest collaboration (notably The Gruffalo; most recently The Baddies, rev. 7/23) is a playful rhyming adventure that’s fun to read aloud and well supported by Scheffler’s recognizable cartoon illustrations. Back matter provides some information about the story’s two “Amazing Birds.” An uplifting tale of big dreams and friends who help along the way.

From the ">November/December 2024 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.