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A Newbery book from 1938. Mr. Popper, a house painter who prefers to daydream about being an Arctic explorer, writes a fan letter to Admiral Drake and gets a surprise gift in the mail: a penguin, whom he names Captain Cook. Soon Captain Cook is nesting in the ice box and terrorizing delivery men. One penguin leads to another, and the next thing the Popper family knows, they have twelve penguins parading in a basement ice rink.
I read this as a kid and enjoyed it though it wasn’t one of my all-time favorites. On re-read, it’s still not an all-time favorite but it’s pretty adorable and funnier than I remembered. I love transformations of ordinary places, and this book has some great ones with a normal house becoming an icy penguin habitat complete with drifts of snow on armchairs.
My other favorite bits include a surprisingly timeless conversation in which Mr. Popper calls up to get a license for the penguins and gets transferred from one clueless bureaucrat to the next, the illustration of a performing seal in a policeman’s hat squaring off with a penguin in a firefighter helmet (it makes sense in context), and the penguins terrorizing a French tightrope walker (also with hilarious illustration).
Despite it being a Newbery book, no penguins are harmed though many humans are nipped.
There is a movie with Jim Carrey, which I will continue to never see.
Mr. Popper's Penguins
I read this as a kid and enjoyed it though it wasn’t one of my all-time favorites. On re-read, it’s still not an all-time favorite but it’s pretty adorable and funnier than I remembered. I love transformations of ordinary places, and this book has some great ones with a normal house becoming an icy penguin habitat complete with drifts of snow on armchairs.
My other favorite bits include a surprisingly timeless conversation in which Mr. Popper calls up to get a license for the penguins and gets transferred from one clueless bureaucrat to the next, the illustration of a performing seal in a policeman’s hat squaring off with a penguin in a firefighter helmet (it makes sense in context), and the penguins terrorizing a French tightrope walker (also with hilarious illustration).
Despite it being a Newbery book, no penguins are harmed though many humans are nipped.
There is a movie with Jim Carrey, which I will continue to never see.
Mr. Popper's Penguins
