Lovebirds: Penguin in Love by Salina Yoon

ONE DAY PENGUIN WAS LOOKING FOR LOVE.

"WHAT'S THIS?"

INSTEAD, HE FOUND ... A MITTEN!

Even penguins know that where there is one mitten, there were once two. And he sets out to find the owner of the other mitten. After all, it's lonely on his ice floe, and he could use a penguin partner.

But unbeknownst to Penguin, there are a couple of Cupids at work in this story, a couple of knitting puffins busy bringing him together with his true love if he is faithful to the quest, following their trail of yarn that extends across the empty spaces of Antarctica. First, he runs into his knitting puffin friend, Bootsy, knitting nose cozies for sea lions.

Penguin is taken with idea of knitting a mate for the mystery mitten, but as he waddles on, knitting as he goes across the frozen seascape, he meet up with other creatures in need of a warm up.

"H-H-HELLO! A-A-ARE YOU KNITTING BILL COZIES? I D-D-DROPPED MINE!"

Several puffins are happy to take all the knitted goods Penguin can provide as bill cozies, and as he trudges on, he finds lots of chilly polar takers for snout cozies, but not the one he wants, the owner of the mate for his mitten. Will Penguin find the object of his soul mate search at the end of that mysterious trail of yarn, the one with the mate for his talisman mitten?

Well, of course, and there's a whale in a handknit sweater to take them off on the next adventure in Salina Yoon's latest, Penguin in Love (Walker, 2013).  Yoon is the princess of penguin stories, and this little search for true love makes heartwarming seasonal storytime fare.  Yoon's illustrations are quite whimsical (one might even say cute), and even her endpapers make the most of the graphic charms of knitting supplies in this appealing yarn for Valentine's Day.

Salina Yoon's other popular penguin tales are Penguin and Pinecone and Penguin on Vacation.