The Tufted Puffins of Triangle Island (Wild By Nature)

Written by Deborah Hodge

Illustrated by Karen Reczuch

Groundwood Books

978-1-773067186 

32 pp. 

Ages 3–7 

August 2025 

 

Children's non-fiction books generally take two formats: one as a story, and the other as an information book with graphs, maps, info boxes, a glossary and more. Both formats work but some stories work better one way than the another. For the Tufted Puffins of Triangle Island, Deborah Hodge and Karen Reczuch's chose to tell their story as a narrative, taking readers right onto the island and making them witness to the lives of these seabirds. 

From The Tufted Puffins of Triangle Island, written by Deborah Hodge, illustrated by Karen Reczuch

First, Deborah Hodge transports us to Triangle Island, an isolated island off the northwestern tip of Vancouver Island. This Ecological Reserve is protected, as is the Marine Wildlife Area around it, offering safety for millions of seabirds from people and land predators. Each year, more than 50,000 Tufted Puffins return in the spring and, after finding their mates, prepare burrows in which nests are created.

From The Tufted Puffins of Triangle Island, written by Deborah Hodge, illustrated by Karen Reczuch

In addition to recounting the life cycle from the laying of the egg to it hatching six weeks later, Deborah Hodge discusses the food and feeding of the Tufted Puffins, the fledging of the birds, and their end-of-summer departure to the North Pacific. It's not until the birds are mature that they will return to Triangle Island to start new lives with the laying of eggs.

From The Tufted Puffins of Triangle Island, written by Deborah Hodge, illustrated by Karen Reczuch

While Deborah Hodge does append her story with a graphic list of other seabirds of Triangle Island and extensive information about the island itself—an extraordinary place of seabird diversity and national and provincial protection—including further reading, she stays true to a narrative. From their arrival to their breeding, departure and return, the lives of the Tufted Puffins of Triangle Island are told with simplicity but heart. It is evident that Deborah Hodge has a deep appreciation for this place and its wildlife and the need to protect them all.

From The Tufted Puffins of Triangle Island, written by Deborah Hodge, illustrated by Karen Reczuch

The remarkable beauty of Triangle Island and its uncommon accommodation of seabirds, among which the Tufted Puffins are but one species, is gloriously portrayed in Karen Reczuch's watercolour and coloured pencil illustrations. The scientific accuracy is there but it's Karen Reczuch's style of creating textures in the birds, in the landscape and with her perspective that generates an elegance of graphic storytelling.  

 

Karen Reczuch and Deborah Hodge have collaborated on previous picture books in their West Coast Wild series (e.g., West Coast Wild Rainforest and West Coast Wild ABC) and, as in The Tufted Puffins of Triangle Island, they have always given us reality with feeling. Even as they tell us about plants and animals and Canadian landscapes, they make us feel for the places they portray. I anticipate no less for this new series Wild By Nature if The Tufted Puffins of Triangle Island is any indication.