The review
If you travel to Japan and happen to use their railways, you'd probably also end up getting their Suica card, the equivalent of an ez-link card. There's a very cute penguin mascot that can be found on the Suica cards and all over the stations belonging to East Japan Railway. The person behind the art is Sakazaki Chiharu, a well-known illustrator and children's book author. I really like the penguin, read: cute, so finding a series of children's books featuring the same penguin (or multiple variations of the penguins) is the best excuse ever.
This book I'm reviewing involves the penguins going shopping in a department store, Wimmelbuch style.
You follow the adventures of 5 penguin siblings buying an assortment of items. The book uses colour cues to help you keep track of the characters in extremely crowded spaces. For instance, big brother had a red bag and is looking for a red umbrella, second brother has a blue bag and is looking for a groovy pair of blue specs, and so on.
As they all explore various levels of the store, it's a dizzying array of items. I loved the illustration and the use of bright and bold colours which would appeal to any child (or adult reader for that matter). For each page, you can also do lots of "spot the x" type of scenarios to get more mileage.
Beyond the non-stop shopping, there's also a sweet little story showcasing the thoughtfulness of the smallest penguin sibling that makes you go awww.
Finally, the book ends off with a handy checklist of things to spot, so you can also cross check if you're out of ideas.