Book Review: The Penguin Party

Disclaimer: We were gifted the book with no obligation to review on the blog.

We love books in our house. Although I may not read as much as I used to do as a child, my love of reading has passed on to the children. One of the things you can never have enough of are books and I am always happy to see new books being published; especially if they have a good moral behind them. The Penguin Party is one of these books.

The Penguin Party

So what is the book about?

On a magical island far away, a tribe of mythical penguins are throwing a party to celebrate your arrival.

During the party, many wonderful gifts will be given to you – gifts you will keep for life.

Will you join in with the celebrations?

This isn’t a book that you just place in your shopping basket and purchase, but one which you can personalise! The story is about the child’s arrival, so it makes sense to personalise it with your child’s name. However the personalisation doesn’t just end there.

Main Character

The main character is the child who is born and given gifts, so this will be the name of the child the book is being gifted to. You can then personalise a number of things. I would say the personalistion options are not extensive but enough to make the book unique to you.

You can personalise the skin tone, the clothes style, hair style. hair colour and glasses. What I particularly liked was that you can even include a headscarf if you wish. However you can’t pick the colour.

The Family

You can also personalise the family. Now this doesn’t have to be a mummy or daddy as you can rename the family as you wish. And you can also have one parent/carer in the story.

As with the main character you can personalise the skin colour, the clothes, hairstyle/headscarf, glasses and even facial hair. Again with the clothes there are only a few options and you can’t personalise the colour.

The Penguins

With the penguins you can personalise the names. This is optional as they already come with names. We decided to personalise the book further with names of family and friends and decided to make Bee’s Nani the Chiefess Penguin!

Dedication

Finally there is a space for a dedication. The standard dedication is:

‘This book was put together especially for you, Bee, and is a lasting reminder of how special you are.’

However you can change this to completely your own message.

What Did We Think?

The whole concept of the book is lovely. The gifts given aren’t your everyday toys but important life skills that everyone needs to help get them through life; happiness, gratitude, growth, exploration, forgiveness, and acceptance.

‘The gift of gratitude helps you to see that real joy comes from the simple things in life.’

The theme of self love is evident towards the end of the story, where it is emphasised to never try to be anyone else, reminding the character that you are the best when you are yourself. Such an important thing for all to remember.

Although I would say the book is more suitable for the older children if the are reading it alone, it would make the perfect gift for a newborn to keep and read (or be read to) as they got older.

What I particularly loved is the inclusivity of the book. Not just allowing the option of the hijab in the book, but also being considerate of other groups, such as single parent families.

A heart warming book to have in your book collection.

Discount Code

If you like the look of the book and would like to purchase one, then Annabee’s books have kindly offered my readers a discount code which you can use on their website for a 15% discount (excluding P&P)

Use the code MUSLIM_MUMMY_15.

This code is valid until 30th April 2020. Head over to Annabees’ Books to get personalising!