Richie’s Picks: ARCTIC ADVENTURE: A TUNDRA TALE
Richie Partington
Richie’s Picks: ARCTIC ADVENTURE: A TUNDRA TALE by Jyoti Rajan Gopal and Alexandra Cook, ill., Macmillan/Feiwel and Friends, January 2026, 40p., ISBN: 978-1-250-38544-4
“Watch out where the huskies go
And don’t you eat that yellow snow”
– Frank Zappa (1974)
“THUMP . . . THUMP . . . BUMP . . . floes collide.
Groooooar . . . Groooooar . . . a walrus bellows.
A sled trundles by.
Hawooo . . . Hawooo, calls the lead husky.
Vrooooom . . . the distant sound of a snow mobile rumbles.
Streetlights glimmer.
In the Arctic winter, darkness reigns.
But life in the tundra flourishes,
in
many,
many
myriad
ways”
ARCTIC ADVENTURE is a beautiful, joyful, and informative picture book tale starring an Arctic fox and her kit, who live in a nearby den, as well as a human mom and her child, who have sailed over to experience the tundra during the middle of the winter, when the sun does not rise for weeks on end.
Both mothers take their youngsters out adventuring. The two pairs coexist at a comfortable distance whilst experiencing the Arctic beauty and all sorts of Arctic critters. Then a snow storm temporarily separates both of the moms from their kids. The two mothers meet up and are chill as they await the reappearance of their offspring. Meanwhile, the young fox and the child meet up and engage in friendly hijinx. Eventually, everyone gets back together, and head off to their respective homes.
The mixed media illustrations are playful and rather stunning, given how the aurora borealis serves as the visual backdrop of this out-of-this-world (BRRRR!!!) adventure.
“The narwhal is known as the unicorn of the sea because of its long spiral tusk, which looks like a horn, but is actually a tooth. Female narwhals may develop a tusk, but this is rare. Narwhals are one of the deepest-diving whales, diving more than a mile to feed on fish, shrimp, and squid, and surfacing for air when they need it.”
The narrative is followed by extensive backmatter including scientific information about climate change and what we can do to help mitigate it, along with explaining the setting, which is the archipelago of Svalbard, Norwegian islands located between Norway and the North Pole. There are brief descriptions of the varied critters that the foxes, humans (and readers) observe in the story, as well as details about the Northern lights that, during the polar night in the middle of the long winter, can be seen around the clock for weeks straight.
Richie Partington, MLIS
Richie's Picks http://richiespicks.pbworks.com