AUDIO BOOK
The Penguin Who Wanted to Find Out

Read by: Maureen Lipman
BBC Audio
Unabridged
RRP: £5.99
ISBN-13: 978 1 84607 180 5
ISBN-10: 1 846 07180 1
Available 02 October 2006


Otto is a baby penguin chick. He lives on his father's feet at the bottom of the world, and loves to play in the snow. Be he isn't an ordinary penguin - he is the first penguin chick to be born that year, which means that it is his job to look after all the other young penguins...

Out in the snow and ice of Antarctica there is an awful lot to learn, and Otto has to discover for himself how to swim, dive and catch fish before he can teach anyone else. And how will he do that when all the grown-ups are too busy to help?

Maureen Lipman reads another one of Jill Tomlinson's tales about a young animal and its surroundings. I couldn't help noticing the strong similarity between this release and that of The Gorilla Who Wanted to Grow Up. And, to be honest if this is representative of Tomlinson's work, it would seem that she's a bit of a one trick pony. Keeping the same basic story and altering the animal and location means that she could carry on writing on this subject indefinitely.

I also had a problem with Lipman's accent in this release. For some unfathomable reason the penguins in this story seem to have emigrated from Liverpool. To be quite honest, the fact that Otto sounded like Cilla Black was a little too much to stomach.

The title is also rather lame: The Penguin Who Wanted to Find Out. My first reaction was: "I wonder what he wants to find out." But don't get your hopes up - it's nothing that exciting.

Sadly, this is a rather disappointing release which, despite using the same basic premise, is nowhere near as enjoyable as The Gorilla Who Wanted to Grow Up.

Amber Leigh

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