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Today I’m taking part again in Nonfiction Monday, a weekly carnival in the kidlitosphere celebrating the best of nonfiction books for children. My contribution is a review of Nights of the Pufflings by Bruce McMillan.

This book is also part of our Icelandic sojourn Reading Round Europe. Althought the author/photographer isn’t Icelandic himself, the book is all about an event which takes place Iceland.

Before going any further I should point out that this book ought to come with a warning: Your child will beg you to holiday in Iceland after reading this book! (And you yourself may well be tempted to say yes).

Photo: The.Rohit

Nights of the Pufflings recounts an annual event on the island of Heimaey, just off the SW coast of Iceland, when for a couple of weeks in late summer the air is thick with pufflings, young puffins, taking their first flight, from the nests of their birth out to sea.

Puffin anatomy is such that they are astonishingly skillful underwater, but not so graceful when airborn and often the pufflings don’t quite make it to the water on their first flight. And unable to take off from flat land things could look bleak for these grounded Pufflings.

Photo: Stig Nygaard

But help is at hand. The children on Heimaey come out at night at this time of year (nighttime is when the pufflings attempt their seabound flight) and gather up all the struggling pufflings in cardboard boxes and take them to the beach the following morning to send their guests on their way.

For two weeks all the children of Heimaey sleep late in the day so they can stay out at night. They rescue thousands of pufflings. There are pufflings, pufflings everywhere, and helping hands too – even though the pufflings instinctively nip at helping fingers.

This real life story is accompanied by a slew of beautiful photos of the events being described: it would seem there are few things more photogenic than puffins and Icelandic scenery. To add further local flavour, the text is peppered with Icelandic phrases, accompanied by pronunciation guides and translations, and further context is provided in the endpages with background information on both Puffins and the island of Heimaey.

This book has proved incredibly popular with my girls. For a start the pufflings are adorable, and then there is this amazing true story where kids are the heroes of the day, not only getting to actually pick up the pufflings, but to rescue them and help them. It’s a story tha

One of the nicest things about having a husband almost two decades younger is that his mom and aunts came with him as ready-made friends. I’m lucky, I know, because it could have gone very differently. Not having any sisters, and getting in-laws who only have sisters, I’m still learning the female sibling dynamic from them. But, being a big sister I know, so Nick’s mom, Becky, who is also the eldest, and I have very similar personalities and social interactions. We both typically take the position that if everyone would just get it together, do their part correctly, and stay out of each other’s way, the world would run much more efficiently--thus, smoothly. Or, more succinctly, if people would just behave like big sisters think they should. Nick’s Aunt Michelle, on the other hand, is a middle-child mediator personality. Even though I don’t quite understand her ways, I admire and even envy them. I’d like to be more like her. And one of the methods I like best is what she calls “skillful means,” a way of finding out what people need and want so that you can provide it when possible and everyone ends up feeling content with the exchange. I have to admit it works, but it’s hard to be patient enough when bossing people around is much faster. In Bruce McMillan’s The Problem With Chickens, Icelandic ladies need eggs and chickens need a place to stay. Once everyone starts working together skillfully, it all works out.

http://www.amazon.com/Problem-Chickens-Times-Illustrated-Awards/dp/0618585818

http://www.brucemcmillan.com/