It's the special holiday edition of New Books in Children's Literature! Today I'm talking with Eric Bennett, a renowned children's author and penguin wheeler-dealer (you'll have to listen to the interview...). We'll be talking about
Noodles' and Albie's Birthday Surprise (Penguin Place, 2016), the latest in the "Noodles and Albie" series. Noodles is a penguin. It's his birthday! It's also December 24th! Albie---a fish, and Noodles' best friend---treats Noodles to a trip to the Polar Kingdom, "the world's greatest undersea amusement park," and gives him a birthday present, a compass as it happens. I don't want to give away the story, but the pair meet a large man with a big white beard, dressed all in red, and in a sled drawn by---you guessed it---reindeer. To Noodles and Albie, the big man is just another strange human, no stranger than any other. Well, the big man is lost. Good thing Albie gave Noodles a compass! It's a great book, and beautifully illustrated by
Milanka Reardon. My three-year-old daughter loved it.
Happy holidays from the NBN!