Kindergarten-Grade 2–A simple, lyrical text follows the fortunes of an Emperor penguin from laying her first egg through her epic journey to open sea seeking food and culminating in her timely return with a belly full to regurgitate for her newly hatched chick. The whole is perfectly accompanied by Marks's luminous blue-toned watercolors, emphasizing the vast distances, the harsh weather, and the dangers lurking in the sea off the ice shelf of Antarctica. The book is similar in scope to Brenda Z. Guiberson's handsome The Emperor Lays an Egg (Holt, 2001), which focuses on the chick, and Martin Jenkins's simpler, attractive The Emperor's Egg (Candlewick, 1999), which highlights the male's long vigil. Team Markle's book with either (or both) of the above, and toss Judy Sierra's rollicking Antarctic Antics: A Book of Penguin Poems (Harcourt, 1998) into the mix for a nifty unit on Emperor penguins.
