Book Review: Puffel Meets a Narwhal

Puffel Meets a Narwhal is the sequel to the earlier Puffel book, written by Sr. M. Gianna Casino, LIHM. In her children’s books, she is always teaching some kind of life value to kids. In this book, the lesson that I took away from it is that there is more to things than meets the eye.

The story begins with Puffel and his friends gathered around a campfire, where a frightening story about a narwhal leaves Puffel scared. Later, when Puffel has his own encounter with a narwhal, he discovers that the creature is actually friendly and caring. When Puffel tells Mama and Papa about his encounter, they help him through it and use it as a teaching moment. Mama tells him, “Other animals may look different from us on the outside. What matters is what’s on the inside.” Papa helps Puffel see how many things have more beneath the surface than meets the eye. For example, the tip of an iceberg has a much larger iceberg underneath the water.

This is a very well-done book. The illustrations are amazing. One aspect of the illustrations that I thought was really neat was the way the campfire scene shows both the puffins around the fire and the story being told, with nice, graceful transitions between them. For example, a flashlight is shown, and within the light of the flashlight, we see the shadow of the narwhal from the story. The book starts out slightly dark and ominous, especially during the campfire stories. But later, when the truth is revealed and Puffel meets the narwhal, everything becomes colorful and cheerful. I would recommend this book for children as a good book for teaching life lessons, especially about looking beyond first impressions and moving past fear.