83 pages • 2 hours read
Richard Atwater, Florence AtwaterMr. Popper's Penguins
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1938A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 11-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 11 Summary: “Greta”
Captain Cook revives when Greta the Penguin arrives and the two share the refrigerator companionably. Captain Cook “thanks” Mr. Popper by giving him one of the game pieces, a checker, from which he has made his nest. When Mrs. Popper complains that she cannot tell the birds apart, her husband paints their names in white on their black back feathers.
The practical Mrs. Popper notes that the birds fill the icebox entirely, that “pretty soon there will be eggs” (71), which will create a space problem, and that she still has no place to store her food. Mr. Popper relinquishes the refrigerator to his wife and moves the birds and their rookery to the living room, where he opens all the windows to approximate Arctic temperatures for them. The Poppers wear their hats and coats in the house to try to stay warm.
A blizzard fills the house with snow drifts one night in November. Mr. Popper insists that the snow be left in place because the penguins enjoy playing in it so much. To add to their fun, he runs a water hose over all the floors to create a skating rink for them; the birds toboggan down the snow drifts on to the ice. Bill and Janie follow suit. When Mrs. Popper complains, Mr. Popper points out that “Captain Cook and Greta are both fat and sleek, and the children have never been so rosy” (73). As Mrs. Popper mops up the melting snow, Mr. Popper promises that he will “do something about it tomorrow” (75).
Chapter 12 Summary: “More Mouths to Feed”
Mr. Popper has an engineer install a large freezing plant in the cellar and brings the pair of penguins to live there in their preferred Arctic temperature. He has the furnace moved to the living room to keep his human family warm. Mr. Popper is worried when he realizes how much money he owes the engineer for this work, but the man agrees to let him pay on credit.
Greta lays 10 eggs in the basement rookery, which is far more than the usual number laid by wild penguins. She could only fit two at a time underneath her, so Mr. Popper creates incubators for the others by putting them “under hot-water bottles and electric heating-pads, kept just at penguin-body heat” (78). The chicks are ravenously hungry as soon as they hatch; their parents and the Poppers bring them food. Mr. Popper names all of the chicks after explorers or rulers who helped to fund exploration expeditions.
Mr. Popper makes the penguins very comfortable in the cellar. He builds them an ice castle and digs a swimming and diving pool in the cellar floor, where he sometimes throws live fish for the birds to catch. While this change in diet is a happy surprise for the penguins, “because, to tell the truth, they had got a little tired of canned shrimps” (80), it is also quite expensive. Finally, the pets’ owner floods a part of the cellar to create an ice rink. In the evenings, Mr. Popper sits in the cellar wearing his coat, watching his pets and dreaming about the “cold, distant regions in which the little creatures really belonged” (82). He dreads the end of his winter break from house painting, when he will be separated from the creatures all day.
Chapters 11-12 Analysis
The arrival of Greta alleviates Captain Cook’s isolation and prevents his death. The authors emphasize the desirability of companionship for both the humans and animals in this book. The Poppers, despite their disparate worldviews and interests, are essentially supportive of each other and value their relationship. The same is apparently true of the penguin pair, Captain Cook and Greta.
The narrative continues to include scientific facts about penguins, e.g., Captain Cook gives his owner a checker, in lieu of the stone he would have found in the South Pole, to thank Mr. Popper for saving his life. Mr. Popper explains this ritual as being part of a penguin ritual to establish friendship. This pattern is repeated when Greta lays 10 eggs over the course of a month as opposed to the “only two eggs a season” (78) laid by penguins in the wild. Mr. Popper speculates that the climate change may have altered the birds’ breeding habits.
In their natural Antarctic habitat, Emperor penguins breed only on the sea ice. The freezing plant in the basement provides the perfect habitat for the creation of penguin chicks. Usually, the males of the species huddle together for warmth throughout the sub-freezing winters. Each incubates a single egg on his feet, using his brood pouch to keep it warm. The female penguin leaves to hunt for krill and fish.
The issue of Mrs. Popper’s pragmatism as opposed to Mr. Popper’s otherworldly outlook is alluded to several times. She reminds him that the population increase will create a space problem and that there is still no place to refrigerate the family’s food. He responds initially by creating a penguin rookery in the living room with all the windows opened; the family members shiver and wear their winter coats inside the house. When his wife complains about mopping up the snow accumulated in the house due to the open windows, he responds that he “will do something about it tomorrow” (75). In turn, Mr. Popper creates a penguin paradise in the cellar, replete with a freezing plant, skating rink, diving pond, and imported fresh fish; however, he does not consider the expenses involved in this project until they are completed. The animals, the children, and their friends are all very pleased with this arrangement, yet it is the ever pragmatic Mrs. Popper who worries about the accrued expenses.
