We’ve gone through quite a few penguin related books over here in the past few months (A Penguin Story, Sergio Saves the Game, Eve of the Emperor Penguin to name a few). I’m not sure if it’s the waddle or the connection to Antarctica–my son’s favorite continent–that has made penguins so darn interesting, but many days at the downtown library, I find myself searching the stacks for more and more penguin stories. So, color me excited when I stumbled on a penguin story that we hadn’t read before–Penguin by Polly Dunbar.
Penguin instantly became a hit in our household largely due to Penguin’s obstinacy and stubbornness. Penguin’s refusal to speak to Ben, the little boy who had received the penguin as a gift, was instantly mimicked as was the threat of feeding each other to a lion for being too loud.
The sign of a good book, however, is when the kids eagerly retell the story to their patient grandmother on the telephone. In the case of Penguin, the kids refused to go to sleep until their father drew a scene from the story to their exacting satisfaction:
Sweet dreams!
the vigorous suck 