Title: Pendleton the Penguin & His Magical Friends
Author: Mike Proko
Illustrated by: Juan Carlos Baer and Alexander Rocha
Publisher: Smashwords
ISBN: 978-0-9850057-2-6
Pages: 25, Paperback/Kindle
Genre: Children’s Book/Fiction

Reviewed by: Gary Sorkin, Pacific Book Review

 

Book Review

Shaman is a playful, happy, white polar bear who lives in an ice cave on Antarctica, along with his flying frog friend Ying-Ying, all under the Aurora Australis of the lights in the Southern Hemisphere. One day Shaman finds an egg left all alone on the ice and brings it back home. “It’s not to be eaten,” he tells Ying-Ying because when held up to the sky, the egg had strange and colorful lights coming from it. So begins the storyline of Pendleton the Penguin and His Magical Friends, by Mike Proko and illustrated by Juan Carlos Baer and Alexander Rocha.

Terse yet wonderfully illustrated, this is a classic bedtime story to be read to young children allowing them to enjoy the friendly creatures which inhabit the outskirts of earth’s biosphere. The book was viewed electronically by me, so the illustrations illuminated beautifully on my laptop with the clarity and bold colors reminiscent of dancing penguins in Happy Feet and the polar bear in Coca-Cola commercials. The irony of the title with the name of the baby penguin being calledPendleton is because of the label on a scarf he had to keep warm came from the century old woolen mill weaving America’s finest fabric. A quick read, the book is just right to allow for a bedside mood change in children and groom their thoughts to those of distant fanciful cartoon-like characters, thus lulling them into a dreamlike world.

The galley text is done in upper-case, thus giving new readers the ability to learn along with the clear lettering. Youngsters having the story read to them will pick up some skills if they follow along with the words as being told the story. Stopping and viewing the pictures bring a story-board like still frame animation with each page, so the pace is very soothing.

With the bear’s name of Shaman, he does in fact manifest a character that acts as intermediary between the natural and supernatural worlds, foretells the future, and controls spiritual forces to some degree. Ying-Ying is of course a play on Ying-Yang, the ancient Chinese balance of life forces within each of us. All in all, Pendleton the Penguin is a very nice story for young children, and will compliment a bookcase of memories being made by those in the next generation in which the survival of penguins and polar bears will rest so heavily upon.