Mr. Popper’s Penguins

By: Richard and Florence Atwater

Mr. Popper was a painter who also enjoyed reading about different countries, especially the North and South Poles.

Mr. Popper wrote a letter to Admiral Drake, an explorer exploring the South Pole, saying how much Mr. Popper enjoys hearing about Admiral Drake’s journeys.

Admiral Drake gets Mr. Popper’s letter and sends Mr. Popper a gift from Antarctica.

Mr. Popper opens the present, being extremely excited about what might be in the box. So, inside Mr. Popper finds a penguin for him, from Admiral Drake, that Mr. Popper is supposed to keep as a pet.

Mr. Popper is so excited about the penguin, that he is forgetting that his family doesn’t have very much money. Mr. Popper shows Mrs. Popper, immediately Mrs. Popper thinks about what they are going to do about money, and the mess that the penguin will make.

What are we going to do

about money and the mess

that the penguin will

make?

Mr. Popper tells Mrs. Popper that money will be fine, and then names the penguin, Captain Cook. Soon Captain Cook becomes part of the family, lives in the refrigerator and eats caned tuna.

Captain Cook becomes ill and Mr. Popper writes a letter to an aquarium that also has a penguin to see if they might know what is wrong with Captain Cook. So, the aquarium sends him a letter back saying that their penguin was going through the same thing, but hers was loneliness. So, the problem was solved the aquarium sent their penguin to Mr. Popper.

The new penguins name is Greta; she is extremely sweet, just like Captain Cook. Both are no longer ill because they have each other.

Soon Greta lays 10 eggs when penguins are only supposed to lay 2 eggs. Soon, the Popper family had 12 penguins. Just as before Mr. Popper is running out of money trying to keep the penguins fed and housed.

Mr. Popper soon trains the family of penguins to march and do tricks. The penguins soon became famous. So the Poppers received a plethora of money for the penguins performing.

The penguins did shows all over the country and got paid an amazing amount of money for their tricks.

Admiral Drake returned from his trip and came to visit Mr. Popper. Admiral Drake invited Mr. Popper to go to the North Pole with him and bring his penguins and let them go, so there would be penguins in the North and South Poles instead of just the South Pole.

Mr. Popper soon agreed to going with Admiral Drake and taking the penguins with him to stay there. All so, that the penguins can live a great life.

The End

Story re-written into a children’s book by one of Ms. Barone’s students.