In this charming wintertime adventure, Flora exchanges the pink leotard that provided a visual symmetry with the long-legged bird in the Caldecott Honor book Flora and the Flamingo for a cool blue skating outfit to take to the ice with a penguin.
Once again, the images on the pages and the compositions that expand when a child lifts the flaps provide visual echoes and humor between penguin and human. Flora first spies a beak surfacing through a hole in the ice, and readers see webbed feet paddling below. Yellow pom-poms on Flora's hat and skates pick up on the penguin's golden beak and webbed feet. The girl bows by way of introduction as the bird uses its flippers to emerge fully onto the ice. Author-artist Molly Idle clearly knows the classic moves, as the skating pair heads in perfect symmetry in one direction, viewed in profile; then, with a lift of the flap, retraces their steps with backs to the audience. They skate and leap in unison--until the penguin senses a submerged school of fish and dives down in pursuit. When the penguin brings back a prize for Flora, the girl (angry at being abandoned) tosses it back. Flora, realizing she's offended her friend, finds a way to make up in a grand finale of a foldout spread (involving a figure eight).
Idle's use of white space and a limited palette keeps the focus on the duo's expressions, body language and creative play. This deceptively simple story of interspecies friendship attests to the importance of each honoring the other, and the compromises required of them both. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness