I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving. I meant to put up a post yesterday, but instead, I cooked a turkey (for only the third time in my life!), had several friends over for dinner, ate, played games, ate, talked, ate, and began watching Fellowship of the Rings. Blogging just didn’t enter into the equation. Probably a good thing.
Mr. Popper’s Penguins, by Richard and Florence Atwater, was a quick read, but one that I have conflicting feelings about. On the one hand, it was a cute little book. On the other hand, it was a little book. Slight, sparse, simple, and well, I felt like they were talking down to their audience. It was like the authors felt the children reading the book wouldn’t be interested in any more than just the basic, simplest story.
And that’s what I felt like I was getting. The basic plot: Mr. Popper is a house painter who longs to travel. He wrote a letter to Admiral Duke, who — out of some weird sort of generosity — sends Mr. Popper a penguin. The chapters once they get the penguin were amusing… getting the refrigerator repairman to drill holes in the icebox and installing a handle on the inside… Mrs. Popper getting used to having a penguin around the house… training Captain Cook (that’s the penguin) to go for walks. But Captain Cook isn’t happy, so Mr. Popper writes to a zoo, who in turn sends him another penguin (because that’s obviously the solution, here), Greta. The two penguins mate, and soon there’s 10 baby penguins around the Popper household. Amazingly, this has all taken place in less than 2 months! (Or at least, that’s the impression I got.) The Poppers take care of the penguins for a while, but then money gets to be short, so they train the penguins and take them on the road. (Those chapters were amusing, too.) That’s essentially the book. It’s amusing, but… that’s all it is. And maybe that’s all it’s supposed to be. I had to keep reminding myself that it was written in 1938; they looked at life and storytelling differently than we do today.
The Book Nut 
My younger son lives for this book. It’s been about a year now since he read it for the first time and our lives have revolved around penguins ever since.I liked the story a lot more as a child; I don’t care for it much now because it really isn’t a great plot, although maybe it could have been. But I don’t tell my son that. 🙂
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I work with children’s literature, but haven’t come across this. Is it an American production?
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Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you enjoyed.
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I read this book a long time ago when I was a kid, but I didn’t remember anything about it except how much I wanted a penguin for a pet. Still haven’t gotten that penguin…
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I read this to my children several year ago, and felt like it was something that you had to read AS a child to appreciate. Two of my kids are obsessed with penguins now, so maybe the seed was planted with that early reading!
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I’ve seen this several times over the years but I’ve never actually read it.
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I just finished listening to this book, and went searching to find out more about it, and your blog entry came up. You wrote such a good review. I’ll be spending more time here, now that I’ve found you! I really loved the book.
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I loved this book so much as a kid, but then it disappeared into the ether and I haven’t been able to find it since. I’d almost rather not read it again, for fear that it won’t live up to my memories.
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The book is rather simple and left me wanting more as an adult, but I imagine my students will enjoy it. It’s a great way to introduce several economics lessons (opportunity costs, credit, etc.)
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Listen, adults….this is a childrens book. I remember reading this as a kid and loving it. I read it over and over again. We try to make things so complex for our kids and then wonder why kids grow up so fast today. Sometimes things do not need to make sense, they just need to be fun, do you remember fun? Some of you have lost that to adulthood, I hope I never do.
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