The Plight of the Penguin

New Zealand Children's Book of the Year Award

New Zealand Children's Nonfiction Book of the Year

Winner of the New Zealand Children's Book of the Year, this is a book as notable for its colourful language as for its many colourful photographs. Aimed at teenagers and above, the book has been praised for the way LSD makes science engaging and fun – sexy, even.

Each chapter begins with relevant lines from well known rock songs. There are cartoons. There are coloured boxes containing eclectic stories. This is not another boring science book.

Check out the example pages:

Penguins are birds, from the depths of their air sacs to the tips of their feathers, but they are birds that appear to have turned back the evolutionary clock and become like their fishy ancestors again. It would be a mistake, however, to look upon them as half bird, half fish. Rather, they are 100 percent birds that are disguised somewhat as fish.

The Plight of the Penguin

Reviews

This book is excellent, everything it should be: a scampering read, fast and funny; excellent natural history, observed first hand; and all underpinned by the deep ideas of modern biology
Colin Tudge

This book inspires learning, celebrates knowledge and celebrates the author’s wide-ranging, rich knowledge and love of his subject…it reads so well…you can open it at any page and hear the author’s wit and whimsy
TheSchoolDaily.com

Lloyd Spencer Davis – he’s not only a world authority on penguins, he’s also a dab hand with the pen. He’s funny and entertaining, scientific and informative all at once
Daily News

The Plight of the Penguin puts science first but expresses the natural history of penguins with wit
NZ Herald

The Plight of the Penguin on iBooks

Lloyd Spencer Davis' award-winning book The Plight of the Penguin is now available on the Apple iBookstore. This is a new digitally-enriched and enhanced version of the book that won both the New Zealand Children's Book of the Year and the Children's Best Nonfiction Book of the Year.