Thank you very much for the complement, Regina, but I will refrain from telling Pengey because he embarrasses rather easily. The simplest answer to this question is that I am a storyteller and storytellers are always doing, what else? telling stories.

The actual and factual answer to this is both complicated and comical because, in fact, the character “Pengey” came to me after I bought a little gift for my wife that was a penguin puppet.
It’s complicated because the development of any fictional character must be complete or the character will not dispel disbelief, and disbelief is essential to any story. It’s comical because it was so much fun bringing this “adorable” little one to life.
At first Pengey was just another figment of my imagination which, as you might suspect, is rather large. As soon as my wife and I named the puppet, Pengey, he started to take on a life in our house. We both animated it and left in situations for the other to find where Pengey the puppet was in trouble. Each situation left a story or asked the question, “Where’s Pengey? or What’s Pengey up to this time.”
Did I mention that there are no adults allowed in our house?

It seemed that we started to experience and enjoy tiny bits of our childhood with the introduction of Pengey to our lives. I began to make up stories about Pengey and my wife world return to our home every day from her high stress corporate job only to ask, What happened to Pengey today? The answers we’re often comical but Pengey never broke character, he was always very proper and polite and often times extremely funny.

It was in September of 2005 that I sat down to write the many adventure of Pengey. Five weeks later it was on the printing presses. It was released in November 2005, at that time March of the Penguins had just been released in theaters.

You know, I didn’t think about any of the things you asked about here, not while I was writing Pengey’s adventures. I didn’t think about what the national guidelines for kids 4-8 or 9-12 are. Or if there was enough humor or whether I was going to win awards or who would approve or who wouldn’t. What I wanted to do was tell a good story. I had the main character, Pengey Penguin. I knew nothing else about the story until I sat down to write it. I don’t take notes or make a storyboard. I write by letting the movie play out in my head. I don’t make it up. I just let my imagination play the movie. I take dictation on what I see in my head.

Being a storyteller, and a pretty good one, so I’m told, it is essential to trust my mental movie projector. Since the book came out I’ve been told more things about it and myself than I could have imagined.

All I really know is that while I was writing this book I became more and more enamored with Pengey Penguin, and the sense of correctness his personality and his entire spirit projects. I cringed at the troubles he endured and more, over the pitfalls he had to overcome. By the time the ending was coming around I was so emotionally involved — I cried, really cried, while I wrote the last three chapters (they still make me choke back tears).

I think most people, kids and adults feel those . . . how real the stress, and my actual emotional involvement was and they (having got themselves caught up in the story) become emotionally involved themselves. I have thousands of letters from loyal fans who have cried there eyes out over the ending of, The Many Adventures of Pengey Penguin.

It’s just a story but somehow (perhaps through the honesty of just a good story) I made it feel like a real experience. Since we all (as humans (kid or adult) feel small sometimes, especially when we are confronted with the seemingly insurmountable obstacles of the day, therein lies the element of this story that makes it universally relative to the human condition. It wasn’t until I had finished that I began to look at this story, the characters in it, and especially the courage of Pengey Penguin that I saw the moral compass he and his story represents.

Well, I have one of the worlds greatest animation directors and his studio showing great interest in producing a series of feature length films. They called me. It was an exceptional honor to be called up from the Hollywood mega-conglomerate and asked if I would consider them. You might remember, Don Bluth and Gary Goldman of the Don Bluth Animation Studios. There best movie was, The Secret of NIHM; but they also did such favorite originals as, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Anastasia, An American Tale, and The Land Before Time. We are in talks over Pengey’s Adventures at this point so hang on to your autographed copies as the first editions will be worth a small fortune one day soon. Naturally I am dying to see the movie.

What I am hoping is that “my little guy” will get to do what he was accidentally invented for. To provide that moral compass to a larger audience of kids around the world. That what I wrote will continue on long after I am dead and continue to influence children around the world with the positive messages found throughout this little book. “Yes . . . I can. If I really, really try. I can do it.”

To answer the question, why? . . . because it is without question the right thing to do and I am sure Pengey Penguin would approve. It would influence kids in a morally correct direction and give them a point of reference to touch on whenever they come to those inevitable forks in the road where they might be tempted to waiver from their path.