Social emotional learning grounded in diversity with inclusion - for kids by kids!
"Beautifully illustrated animal stories created by children for children."
- Carmen Fariña -
Former Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education
Meet the Persevering Penguins and Pals reached #1 Amazon bestseller across three categories in Children's Books!
Contact us at Contact us at info@penguinsandpals.com for bulk orders and other inquiries
Meet the Persevering Penguins and Pals reached #1 Amazon bestseller across three categories in Children's Books!
Meet the Persevering Penguins and Pals Won A Silver Medal for Moonbeam Children's Book Award for Best Book by Youth Author!
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The Box Set: The Perfect Gift For The Holidays & beyond!
Coming Soon: Fun with the Persevering Penguins and Pals Box Sets, including bestselling and award winning books, activities, stickers, pins, and more!"
The Box Set: The Perfect Gift For The Holidays & beyond!
Coming Soon: Fun with the Persevering Penguins and Pals Box Sets, including bestselling and award winning books, activities, stickers, pins, and more!"
Be Notified Of The Box Launch & Things Coming Up By Signing Up For the Penguins & Pals Newsletter
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It's Time To Meet the Persevering Penguins and Pals
WHAT'S INSIDE: A charming animal story about a colony of penguins and other creatures that help children learn that being determined, working with others for a common goal, and embracing differences is what helps us succeed in life.
Contact us at info@penguinsandpals.com for bulk orders
"Perfect Companion For Mindfulness Classrooms."
- Carmen Fariña
Former Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education
Who is the Picture Book For?
"Written and illustrated by children who truly relate to their young audience, this book is a fun and engaging way for little ones to embrace diversity, inclusion, and what it means to be successful global citizens. This is for teachers/adults to read as well as discuss with pre-school and elementary school students. This picture book is also for independent readers from second grade and up! It is for anyone, regardless of age, who loves beautiful artwork and uplifting messages as to how we can be our best selves."
Who is the Picture Book For?
"Written and illustrated by children who truly relate to their young audience, this book is a fun and engaging way for little ones to embrace diversity, inclusion, and what it means to be successful global citizens. This is for teachers/adults to read as well as discuss with pre-school and elementary school students. This picture book is also for independent readers from second grade and up! It is for anyone, regardless of age, who loves beautiful artwork and uplifting messages as to how we can be our best selves."
"Perfect Companion For Mindfulness Classrooms."
- Carmen Fariña
Former Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education
Who is the chapter book for?
"Crafted primarily for upper elementary and middle school students to read, this book is a charming animal story about penguins and other creatures who help children learn that being determined, working with others for a common goal, and embracing differences help us all to succeed. This chapter book also gives its readers discussion points on what it means to face and overcome challenges. It reinforces the importance of perseverance, helping others, leading, inspiring, networking, and growing."
"Beautifully illustrated animal stories created by children for children. "
- Carmen Fariña
Former Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education
Who is the chapter book for?
"Crafted primarily for upper elementary and middle school students to read, this book is a charming animal story about penguins and other creatures who help children learn that being determined, working with others for a common goal, and embracing differences help us all to succeed. This chapter book also gives its readers discussion points on what it means to face and overcome challenges. It reinforces the importance of perseverance, helping others, leading, inspiring, networking, and growing."
"Beautifully illustrated animal stories created by children for children. "
- Carmen Fariña
Former Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education
About the Authors & Illustrator
Authors Moorea & Jasper Friedmann
Illustrator Emma Cheng
Our inspiration is Po-Ling Ng – grandmother to Moorea and Jasper, as well as great aunt to
Emma. Po-Ling has shown us through her own life journey what it means to persevere for your purpose and personal vision, help others, lead, inspire, network, and grow.
PO-LING POWER, co-authored by Po-Ling and Betty (Moorea and Jasper’s mom), inspired Moorea, Jasper, and Emma to write their own books to bring the same important life lessons to children. Anything is possible as long as we help one another to succeed!
Emma Cheng (center), Moorea Friedmann (right), and Jasper Friedmann (left) are cousins who are the proud products of New York City’s public school system. They embarked on this journey together to write and illustrate Persevering Penguins and Pals series. It’s been an incredibly rewarding experience for them to work together as a family to create something extremely special—an amazing gift to the world. Please enjoy their work and be sure to share it with others.
Emma Cheng
Emma started illustrating these books when she was only in the fifth grade. Besides illustrating animals, she enjoys creative writing, reading fantasy novels, and playing with her canine companion, Shelby. In 2017, she won first place in the Junior Duck Stamp Program Conservation and Design Contest for her age category, as well as the grand prize for the Little Neck Douglaston Memorial Day Parade and Essay Contest. Emma wants to be an author/illustrator when she grows up.
Moorea Friedmann
Moorea started working on these books when she was in the third grade. Moorea loves wakeboarding, water-skiing, surfing, biking, skiing, swimming, and jumping off cliffs in the Bahamas. She enjoys reading fantasy books and historical fiction. Moorea is fascinated with politics and wants to become president of the United States. She is always begging her parents for a puppy or a kitten. That’s another reason why she loves to visit Emma and Shelby.
Jasper Friedmann
Jasper started working on these books when he was in the second grade. He loves reading all types of books, as well as building small houses and models of planes, boats, spaceships, and the like. Jasper also loves playing the keyboard and making movies starring his stuffed animals, such as The Great Adventures of Teddy Tom and The Three Adventurers. He enjoys biking, skiing, karate, and swimming. Jasper wants to make feature films and own a store for kids to invent things.
The Creative Process
How do books like these come together?
Emma, Moorea, and Jasper persevered for over two years to complete these two books. When possible, they would get together for playdates and to brainstorm on the story lines. Because of their busy schedules, they were not always able to be together during the creative process. However, they leveraged technology, including Google Docs, to collaborate when they were apart. They added to the Google document independently and commented on one another’s work. True teamwork!
After drafting the chapter book (The Persevering Penguins and Pals: Propelling One Another to Success), they decided that it would be very helpful to also create a simplified picture book version for classroom and other discussion purposes. As a result, they also developed Meet the Persevering Penguins and Pals, which has been published as an an accompanying picture book. To make sure key messages emphasized in Meet the Persevering Penguins and Pals made sense, Moorea and Jasper asked their mom (Betty) for her input and have given her credit as a coauthor!
Emma was the illustrator of all the main pieces and worked on her pieces during her many sessions at Ashcan Studio.
Emma creating amazing illustrations using watercolors.
Moorea and Jasper writing character names during their winter break (left). Jasper writing animal stories during summer vacation (right).
Moorea (left) and Jasper (right) refining the draft manuscript before submitting it to Archway Publishing in early 2019.
The Song
As we created the book, we also thought it would be really cool to collaborate with our favorite kids band, Rolie Polie Guacamole, to create an accompanying song! We're so excited that our talented friends helped us to create an amazing song that captures the essence of our book in a fun and catchy tune.
Check out the song at the following links:
What People Are Saying:
"Successful leaders must be inclusive and humble team players.These qualities are learned behaviors that are best acquired as a child, for you can bring them with you throughout your life journey and apply them in all facets of life. "Meet the Persevering Penguins and Pals"...ignites the imagination with lessons and gentle encouragement."
- Marlon Young
Former CEO and Regional Head, HSBC Private Bank Americas
Beautifully illustrated animal stories created by children for children. At this stage in their lives, children and adolescents may face many emotional challenges and need support in facing these issues. This book gives them discussion points to begin group and individual dialogue to face these challenges. The adults in their lives can also read it to provide conversation and provide positive reinforcement for action. Building character traits is as important as building academic skills.
- Carmen Fariña
Former Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education
" The messages behind this beautiful little book are inspiring and relevant, focusing on themes of hard work, friendship, the courage to walk into the unknown, but most stunning about each page is the fact that it was written and illustrated by little elementary school kids.
The illustrations in this book are astounding. The texture of each animal, the mood of the environment that they are in, the expression of each creature, were brought to life by sophisticated watercolors. Each face revealed a spirit both prominent and animated. The artist, also a child, has achieved what most adults never will.
Seeing what the next generation can accomplish at such a young age is the most inspirational message from this book. I highly recommend this for parents to read to their children, and to show them what they too can accomplish with hard work and persistence."
- Fred Yu
Amazon.com Customer
" My family and I love this book, and love to read it together. Reading these words, written by children, gives us so much hope for the future. We can work together to achieve our goals. Bravo to the two young authors, and to the very talented illustrator.
I highly recommend it."
- Paula Conrad
Amazon.com Customer
" My 5 year old son loved this book and we have already read it together several times! If you are looking for a great book with strong character building messages, this is it! He loved the fact that the book was written by kids...that made it cooler to him and made him more interested!"
- Ajay Dhawan
Amazon.com Customer
Book Launch
9/7/19 Book Signing Meet & Greet @ Barnes & Noble