Nothing Like a Puffin

Much like her eponymous puffin, Soltis shows her mischievous side in her debut picture book, a playful exploration of unexpected comparisons with twists that will have readers reconsidering the ways in which disparate things can be surprisingly similar. "What a marvelous creature, one of a kind and amazing," she writes of the puffin. After discussing how a ladder and a house are nothing like a puffin, the narrator runs into a bit of trouble. "A newspaper, to be sure, is nothing like a puffin.... A newspaper has pages. It's black and white. But wait%E2%80%94a puffin is black and white, too! What are the chances?" This epiphany leads to others (a puffin can swim like a goldfish and dig like a shovel) as Kolar's (Big Kicks) bold, cheerful cartoons show the bird causing lighthearted havoc, tearing the homeowner's newspaper and biting a snake on the tail. What's more, his restrained palette reinforces the similarities Soltis so effectively uncovers, e.g., the house's awning is striped with the same orange, yellow, and blue of the puffin's beak. Delightful, thought-provoking fun. Ages 4%E2%80%936. (Sept.)