When I think back on my childhood, often it is books that anchor events in my mind. “Oh, my dad read that to me when I was three,” or “In kindergarten, that was my favorite book all year.” Books have always been there for me. And while everyone was read Goodnight Moon, Mother Goose, and Where the Wild Things Are as a child, I haven’t heard many say they were read Tacky the Penguin.
Yes, such a book does exist and to tell you the truth, I consider it a lost classic. This book about a penguin that doesn’t quite fit in struck a chord with my brothers and me. Tacky is a bother to all the straight laced penguins, but when hunters come to capture the penguins, it is Tacky and his unpenguin-like ways that save the day. My dad would sing the song that Tacky sings in a cool, unrhymic way:
How many toes does a fish have?
And how many wings on a cow?
I wonder, yup, I wonder.
and he would sing the hunters’ song in a gruff voice, almost scary voice:
We’re gonna catch some pretty penguins,
And we’ll march ’em with a switch,
And we’ll sell ’em for a dollar,
And get rich, rich, RICH!
I still love this book, and if you come in, I might even show it to you!
Come catch up on your childhood at Lemuria.
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