"I met a penguin
as strong as an elephant,
as gentle as a dove,
as pretty as a peacock,
and I fell in love.”

At this point in my career I’ve published over eighty books, but I Met a Penguin is truly one of the special ones. I’m so glad that it’s finally back in print and available again. I Met a Penguin is an innocent bitter-sweet story about a lion that meets a penguin and falls in love. I wrote and illustrated it many years ago when I was living at a school in a rural village in India teaching English to young Indian children. I guess, looking back, that was the perfect place to create this book, so far from the rest of the world, like the main character, Lion, who lives on an island in the sea. Whenever I write a story something of my life inevitably seeps into it, but I Met a Penguin is the most autobiographical story I’ve ever written. I think it’s also one of the most universal. So allow me to introduce you to this tender little story.
Frank Asch