Linny and Nancy record this episode a bit early because Linny is heading out to Colorado for Thanksgiving. Nancy talks about attending the National Humanities Conference in Providence, Rhode Island. It was a great experience, but unfortunately, her voice is a little scratchy since she came back with a cold. Since it’s December, we’re reviewing a children’s book. This year, we selected The King Penguin by Vaness Roeder. Vanessa Roeder wrote and illustrated the book. She’s written and illustrated five children’s books. She’s won awards for her art and writing from Austin and Houston’s Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and was a finalist for the Writers League of Texas Picture Book Awards. This book was published in 2023. It’s a book appropriate for toddlers on up, I’d say. It’s got whimsical illustrations and a nice cadence to it that would keep a toddler’s attention over many readings. Nancy liked this book because it’s sort of like governance from the perspective of a king penguin. And this King Penguin, Percival, likes being a king penguin, because it means he’s the king of all the other penguins. It’s just a given that he’s the ruler. He accepts it and all the special treatment he gets and the other penguins do too, for a while, until they kick him out of the colony because they start thinking maybe they don’t want a king. Linny wasn’t surprised he was kicked out of the colony because he was pretty selfish. He doesn’t see that the problem is him so he sets off looking for other creatures to rule over, seals, polar bears, walruses, and sardines, and they all just try to eat him. What’d you think of that. For Percival, it’s humiliating to be a king and not have others recognize your divine power. Except, then he is finally one-upped when he meets an emperor penguin, whose rank surpasses his. He has the realization, maybe he’s just one penguin and he should be helping and not exploiting his colony. Like the prodigal son, he returns to his colony and apologizes. Together the penguins make decisions together and he discovers life is pretty good being a part of his tribe when everyone shares. So, obviously this children’s book has a lot of messages. Linny thought there were some good messages in this book for young children. A primary one is that you should apologize when you do wrong. Nancy liked the message about democracy for older kids. She thought there were parallels with Percival and King George! She also thought it illustrated that we should be grateful for our community and how to be a good community member. Nancy likes how the book’s illustrations further delve into the story. She reads the section about the king’s “responsibilities” and how the illustrations provide further depth to Percival’s selfish decisions. Linny thinks that kids will be attuned to what the little penguins have to say, especially when they take action against their king. Percival, Linny thinks, is a thick-headed character! She thinks that parents will be able to have good discussions with their children about this book: detecting why Percival was booted and also on the more abstract concepts like democracy. Nancy likes the sophistication of the topics and also that kids could learn about the different types of penguins. Macaroni Penguin doesn’t think his name represents who he is. Linny could see rereading this book to a child over and over again. Nancy remembered all the research on the positive benefits of reading to children, even when they are babies. Linny reminds her that it’s not just the reading, but also the discussion. Linny notes that this is a good Christmas book since it’s polar! Linny says she was inspired by the democratic decision-making in this book and asked her son whether he would support having only a turkey breast for Thanksgiving dinner, instead of an entire turkey. He said yes.