• Synopsis •
Pengey doesn't have many breaks as a baby, he's the runt of the colony, and is orphaned soon after he hatches. Shunned by the other penguins, he wanders off in search of food. He has no chance to survive. When a fierce storm leaves him stranded on a tiny iceberg, he stays calm. Pengey relies on the lessons his parents taught him. When he’s lonely, or hungry, or angry, or just plain stuck---you see---he always, “ponders his options.” Pengey is a very smart penguin.
After days and days at sea, after surviving attacks by hungry predators, Pengey makes landfall. Starving and tired, he stumbles upon a shack where some humans are wrapping up their work. Pengey's always inquisitive, polite, and a quick study, but he is near death when he meets Wendy. Still, Pengey manages to impresses Wendy with his good manners and ability to speak very small but important human words. His reward is a full tummy, but their friendship is short-lived because the next morning Wendy leaves on an airplane to go back to her home in New York City. She pleads with Pengey to go with her, but he is terrified of the airplane.
Watching her plane take off, Pengey vows never to be alone again, and it is then that Pengey begins of a new adventure--to find his new best friend--his adopted mom, Wendy. One complete mishap leads Pengey to Brazil and to his happy reunion with her, but the next mishap separates him from Wendy again, and lands Pengey in animal jail.
With his ability to talk noticed by the jailer, Pengey looks like money in the bank. He knows many evildoers who would pay handsomely for a talking penguin. That they would enslave Pengey to the circus or the cloning laboratory is of no matter to the greedy jailer. It's also in animal jail that Pengey meets his most trusted allies, Rufus Puffin--quiet, smart, and reserved, and Lionel Macaw--street wise, grew up on the Lower East-Side. The three unlikely castaways must overcome obstacles that test their skills and friendship at every turn -- not the least of which is how to escape from animal jail -- but once free of that, they face the real and immediate dangers of the real world.
Now, Lionel Macaw and Rufus Puffin must help Pengey escape from the mad scientist and if they can snatch Pengey back from the clutches of the evil-doers, the only way out of the rain forests of Brazil and Venezuela, and the constant danger of wild animals, is to fly. On the side of luck Lionel is a huge bird, and the tiny penguin finds that he can fly on Lionel’s back.
Clear of one obstacle and then another, the little threesome is faced with their greatest challenge. The flight across the mighty Caribbean. It's always been prone to terrible sea squalls that Pengey and Rufus can easily survive. But the sea is of no comfort to Lionel because he cannot swim and the little islands that dot the great water are few and far between. Conquering the elements, escaping from predators, and making the dangerous 5,000-mile journey to New York is what bonds Pengey, Lionel, and Rufus together.
Spurred on by Rufus and Lionel’s strengths and Pengey's cheerful, spirited ways---the unlikely friends find their ways back to where they were each loved the most. They had to continue on their separate ways, for that is the way things are --- each rewarded by the friendship they found on their amazing adventure.
But in the end, it is Pengey's reunion with Wendy that is a triumph of the spirit, because without Wendy, Pengey would have had no journey at all.
