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Shannon Earle makes time to write between teaching kids outdoors, parenting her three daughters, and preparing piles of vegetables from her family's urban homestead in Takoma Park, MD. She has visited Brazil several times, including Ilha Grande, where this story takes place. This is her first book. Renato Alarc o has been an illustrator since he was a child, logging his first paying freelance job at age nine. He has a master's degree from the School of Visual Arts in New York City and teaches art. Renato is the illustrator of Soccer Star, Roberto's Trip to the Top, and Finding the Music/En pos de la mosica. He lives in a coastal town across the bay from Rio de Janeiro with his wife Rosa and their two sons. Renato has visited Ilha Grande a few times, and he wishes he were as good in the water as a penguin. www.alarcao.com/br
A true and tender tale that celebrates the lasting bond that forms between a small penguin in dire straits and the man who rescued him. One day in May, Seu Joao finds an oil-soaked Magellanic penguin on the beach at Praia Proveta and takes him home to clean him up. He assumes the bird won't hesitate to return to the ocean, but even when fully recovered, Dindim, as he's dubbed, has different ideas. The two-one a shin-high poppet clad in formal black and white in Alarcao's pastel-hued illustrations, the other a light-skinned elder aglow with wrinkled benevolence-become constant companions...until, one hot day the following February, Dindim begins to molt and, around the time of Carnaval, doesn't come back from his accustomed swim. But then, four months later, he waddles back out of the ocean to touch his bill to a delighted Seu Joao's nose, and so continues an annual pattern that goes on for seven years. In group scenes the illustrator populates the warm and sandy Brazilian setting with multihued local children in animated poses and, though he portrays Dindim with plenty of personality, resists the temptation to anthropomorphize his feathered subject. Earle expands a closing note on the real Dindim with remarks about Magellanic penguins in general and environmental and other threats to them. An episode with a strong sense of place awash in humor and heart. (glossary) (Informational picture book. 6-8) -Kirkus Reviews
