Great for Teachers to Use For A Thematic Unit, October 13, 2000

I've lived 26 years on this earth. In those 26 years I've learned a lot about children's books. I've learned which ones are considered the holiest of holies and which are to be condemned and spat upon. So I was completely taken aback when I learned that there was a 1938 children's book that absolutely no one had ever told me to read before. "Mr. Popper's Penguins" was a delight to discover. Suddenly I was privy to reading a charming story of a man and his penguins, and I had never even heard a peep about this tale from anyone. What gives? Why isn't "Mr. Popper's Penguins" as well-known and well-read as "Cheaper by the Dozen" or "Stuart Little"? There is no answer to this question. There is only this wonderful book, well-illustrated and magnificently written for the younger set.Mr. Popper is a house painter, and mostly a good one. True, he does sometimes fall into fits of fancy, dreaming about the Arctic explorers and the ice floes to the North and South. His...

My daughter recently brought this book home, and after reading only one page, I went and bought my own copy! I had to have this for my classroom!