GROWING UP WILD: PENGUINS

The author of the popular “Outside and Inside” series sticks to outsides in this photo album for younger readers—but the verbal and visual messages are definitely at odds. In big, bright color portraits, Adelie penguins, their adorably fluffy, clumsy looking chicks, and gull-like skuas all pose photogenically on a rocky, crowded Antarctic strand. Things are not as cozy as they seem, however, as the bleak accompanying commentary reveals: parents defend their own chicks (but weakly) from marauding skuas, but not the neighboring young at all; should the loss of one parent force the other to go after food, “the chick usually dies,” and chicks are abandoned wholesale anyway once molting season arrives. None of this is shown in the upbeat photographs, of course; the idea seems to be “no dead penguins.” Markle also refers to behavior that is not illustrated—adults fishing or tricking the skuas—identifies two Adelie penguin nurseries but does not locate them on her map, and offers no links to further sources of information. Though the text is considerably franker than most, this is patchy, uninspired work, not up to Markle’s usual excellent standard. (Nonfiction. 7-9)