Peter and Paul are puffins and best friends. One day a storm blows Puffin Peter away from the islands where he and Paul and the rest of the puffins live. Peter drifts out to sea for a long while. Then a whale comes and decides to help Peter find Paul. Peter says that Paul is “funny and noisy” so the whale takes Peter to where he thinks Paul might be. But the whale takes Peter to some parrots. Peter then tells the whale that Paul has black and white feathers, so the whale takes Peter to some penguins. And so it continues until Peter doesn’t even want to look up because he is so sad to not have his best friend around. Then the whale sees Paul flying toward them (from some tiny islands they came across). Peter and Paul are together again. And the whale asks Peter why he didn’t just say that Paul was a puffin like Peter.

This is a fun story about how giving all the information right away could have saved quite the journey of Peter But also, it is a story about how one nice whale was willing to go and help Peter find his best friend (and thus the rest of the puffins). It basically is a fun story that could be the start of quite a few discussion points with kids: Why do you think the whale didn’t understand who Paul was? Why didn’t Peter tell everything about Paul (like the most obvious that he looked just like himself)?

ISBN: 9781406357707 

Older kids (Ages 6 - 8) could contrast this book with Monkey Puzzle.