Gia and I are “beaking'” with excitement to be part of the blog tour and giveaway for Puffins! written by Maria Gianferrari and illustrated by Maris Wicks. This engaging and informative picture book celebrated its book birthday on April 14, 2026. Thanks to author Maria Gianferrari for sharing an eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Beginning on the front end papers, readers are transported to Maine’s Eastern Egg Rock Island to experience the life of a puffin with one lone bird flapping its wings across the water and landing on the rocky terrain with a wump. The title page spread shows the commotion of nesting season with puffins in the sky, land, and water and a human observation area can be seen in the far background. I love the creative decision to begin the narrative on the title page spread with the Gianferrari’s first sentence ending with the title, Puffins. Through Wicks’ bustling artwork with onomatopoeia, I could hear the puffins as I began reading.
Gianferrari has a gift for writing informational text for kids. She consciously weaves in precise vocabulary such as soldiers, stomps, and gapes into her concise text which supports children’s oral and written vocabulary. Content words like brood, patches and incubating are also thoughtfully embedded to build knowledge on the topic. Wicks’ graphic novel format will have immense kid appeal hooking them immediately and supports their knowledge building of puffins.
While I was reading, I learned that mother and father puffins share lots of responsibilities such as taking turns incubating the egg and searching for food. What I love about Puffins! is readers will have an emotional response to the puffling chick’s need for food and its parents fervent quest for nourishment knowing gulls are lurking around to steal their catch or worse snatch a young puffin.
To all readers’ happiness, the chick grows up to be Little Puffin. Having spent her life on land, she is excited to venture until the dark sea to take care of herself finding food, a raft of puffins to call her own, and finally a mate to start the life cycle once again.
I love how the backmatter continues Wicks’ graphic novel format with Gianferrari’s text explaining more facts about puffins. Educational and entertaining, Puffns is a must for all libraries-public, school. classroom or home.
Maria Gianferrari is a picture book reader/writer, animal-lover, and bird nerd. She writes books that honor our bonds with creatures both domestic and wild, and that celebrate urban ecosystems and the natural world around us. Maria’s newest releases are Just One Oak and Puffins!, both published in April 2026. Other recent titles include Rain and the Reading Horse, To Dogs, with Love, Fungi Grow (a Boston Globe Horn Book Honoree), Thank a Farmer, You and the Bowerbird as well as the companion books, Being a Cat & Being a Dog. Her book, Be A Tree!, won a Massachusetts Book Award Honor and has been translated into 16 languages. She grew up in Keene, NH, and lives with her family in Worcester, MA, where coyotes, bobcats and bears traverse her backyard.
Maris Wicks is a writer and illustrator whose work has taken her all over the world, from the warm waters of the Caribbean to the frozen ice of Antarctica. Most recently, she got to hang out with all the incredible seabirds on Eastern Egg Rock, and she is not exaggerating about the amount of poop. Find out more at mariswicks.com
Enter Beagles & Books Giveaway!
Thanks to the generosity of Roaring Brook Press, we have one copy of Puffins! for a lucky Beagles and Books reader. All you need to enter is a US mailing address. Leave a comment to enter.
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