This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Illustrations by Jim Madsen
Cover art by Jim Madsen.
Cover design by Angelie Yap. Cover copyright © 2020 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Schrefer, Eliot, 1978– author. | Madsen, Jim, 1964– illustrator. | Atwater, Richard. Mr. Popper’s penguins.
Title: The Popper penguin rescue / by Eliot Schrefer; illustrated by Jim Madsen.
Description: First edition. | New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2020. | “Inspired by the Newbery Honor Book Mr. Popper’s Penguin by Richard and Florence Atwater.” | Audience: Ages 8–12. | Summary: Long after Mr. Popper found his famous penguins a proper home, his distant relatives, Nina and Joel, move to a new house with their mother and find mysterious eggs in the basement.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020005068 | ISBN 9780316495424 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780316495417 (ebook) | ISBN 9780316495448 (ebook other)
Subjects: CYAC: Penguins—Fiction. | Single-parent families—Fiction. | Moving, Household—Fiction. | Arctic regions—Fiction. | Humorous stories.
Classification: LCC PZ7.S37845 Pop 2020 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020005068
ISBNs: 978-0-316-49542-4 (hardcover), 978-0-316-49541-7 (ebook)
E3-20200905-JV-NF-ORI
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
PROLOGUE: Stillwater
CHAPTER 1: Hillport
CHAPTER 2: Nina and Joel Build a Nest
CHAPTER 3: Oork!
CHAPTER 4: A Pop Quiz
CHAPTER 5: Ernest and Mae
CHAPTER 6: The Way of All Goldfish
CHAPTER 7: Grounded?
CHAPTER 8: The Popper Foundation
CHAPTER 9: Leaving Hillport
CHAPTER 10: The Journey Begins
CHAPTER 11: Run Aground!
CHAPTER 12: The Popper Penguins
CHAPTER 13: Bleak Prospects
CHAPTER 14: Show and Tell
CHAPTER 15: A Gathering Storm
CHAPTER 16: Strange Bedfellows
CHAPTER 17: The Huddle
CHAPTER 18: A New Destination
CHAPTER 19: The Popper Penguins Perform an Encore
CHAPTER 20: Growing Pains
CHAPTER 21: Homecoming
CHAPTER 22: Farewell, Dr. Drake
Acknowledgments
To the memory of Florence and Richard Atwater and their children, Doris Atwater and Carroll Atwater Bishop.
Our grandparents’ book, Mr. Popper’s Penguins, has delighted children for decades. It has been translated into numerous languages and has inspired theatrical, musical, and film adaptations. Now it has inspired a new book, The Popper Penguin Rescue. We hope that you enjoy it.
—Kate and Alec Bishop
STILLWATER
EACH YEAR, STILLWATER held the Popper parade, when everyone would gather to acknowledge the city’s most famous residents. Grown-ups took the day off work. No children had to go to classes.
There was good reason to celebrate the Poppers. Mr. Popper had once been an ordinary house painter. But he’d fallen in love with penguins and let his favorite explorer know. Then, one September thirtieth, he’d received a penguin, sent express mail straight from the Antarctic by Admiral Drake himself!
That now-famous penguin, Captain Cook, was soon followed by another, Greta. Once there were a male and female penguin in the house, there were eggs and chicks. The Poppers soon hosted twelve penguins and became very famous after they started up a traveling theatrical act.
From then on, September thirtieth was Stillwater’s Popper parade day. The local children would take the bus to school as usual, but they’d cluster in the schoolyard instead of going to classes. There, they donned their best penguin costumes, which they had worked hard on in art class. Some looked very accurate. Some looked more like skunks or hamsters.
The adults in the town arrived next, dressed like the Poppers or the other characters from the family’s adventure—Mrs. Callahan, Mr. Greenbaum, even Admiral Drake himself! Everyone would have great fun wearing elegant clothes from the 1930s. Then, with the high school marching band blaring away, they all proceeded around town. The kids went first, doing their best impressions of a penguin waddle. The group trundled past the former Popper home at 432 Proudfoot Avenue, past the barber shop and the Palace Theater. The procession finished at the great city square, where news crews came from all over the country to film the merriment.
In the square were copper statues of all twelve Popper Penguins: Captain Cook, Greta, Columbus, Victoria, Nelson, Jenny, Magellan, Adelina, Scott, Isabella, Ferdinand, and Louisa. In the center of those birds were statues of the Poppers and their children. It made quite an image for the front pages of the nation’s newspapers. Confetti and ribbons, penguins and Poppers! It was the highlight of every year in Stillwater.
Across the river, in Hillport, it was quite a different story.
HILLPORT
AFTER PASSING THROUGH the neat boulevards of Stillwater, the moving truck rumbled past the low houses and blinking billboards of Hillport. The town had every kind of penguin attraction imaginable. There were penguin petting zoos, penguin gift shops, even a penguin waterslide. The truck eventually came to a stop in front of a sagging building. Light bulbs traced the words Penguin Pavilion out front, but not a single bulb was lit, despite the dark evening. The front door of the broken-down petting zoo was boarded up, and the electricity was shut off.
“We’re going to live here, Mom?” Joel asked, rubbing the car window with his sleeve so he could see better. He didn’t mean his words to sound as negative as they did.
“Is there even any power?” asked his little sister, Nina, from the middle seat of
