The Truth About Penguins: Trivia

• The idea for this book came from an exchange I had with my daughter, who was about eight at the time. It was back in the era of Happy Feet, March of the Penguins, and so on when penguins were all the rage and every child I spoke to seemed to want to tell me about them. One day my daughter came home from school and started telling me all the penguin facts she had learned that day - Did you know that penguins live in Antarctica? Did you know that the dads put the eggs between their feet? Did you know that penguins mate for life? - that sort of thing. And I just thought I'd have some fun with her. I replied, "Well, you know, that's what they tell you. That's what the penguins want you to believe. But actually, penguins don't even like the cold. The ice is slippery and the wind makes their beaks hurt." Without really meaning to, I just began spinning a yarn about penguins who flew off to tropical beaches, leaving their chicks at home with nannies, and picking up fried fish at the drive through. And later I wondered if there was a story there. It took a couple of years of back and forth with my editor and a lot of redrafting to make it work as a picture book, but that's where it all began.
  
   

• When I was doing bits and pieces of research for the book - to make sure I got the actual penguin facts right and also to check that there wasn't already a similar book out there, I came across a website about penguins with an FAQ that read: Who are they? What do they eat? Where do they live? And what does their hair taste like? Funnily enough, the last one is not a question that made its way into the book.
   

• In 2010, I lived in Japan for 3 months on an Asialink Literature Residency. To honour the duck from Duck for a Day, I carried him with me as my trusty companion. However, at the end of June, just a few days before The Truth About Penguins was due to be published, we were walking around the neighbourhood when we realised we were being watched. The penguins had arrived!