Reddit reviews Frans Lanting: Penguin

A picture book with photos of penguins comes to mind. Something like this: http://www.amazon.com/Frans-Lanting-Penguin/dp/383653097X. Just be advised that such books may contain pictures of the crueler side of nature. I have the above book myself for instance, and quickly scanning through it things aren't that bad, but there is one single picture of the frozen corpse of an emperor penguin chick that may be a little upsetting to a child. There's no blood or anything, but still... Yeah, dead penguin chick. :(

Then there's several penguin conservation groups that allow you to "adopt" a penguin, complete with adoption certificate. That could be pretty cool.

But yeah, there's nothing wrong with a soft plush penguin either.