tl;dr--do YOU have this book, or know someone who does? It's called Tiny Penguin's Flying Lesson.
I have posted this on different parts of the internet several times now, and I can't believe it's never occurred to me to post here until now...
This book has been my white whale. I have been looking for it for years.
My spouse had a copy and the included small plush penguin as a small child. When we first started dating, they told me about how, as a toddler, he accidentally dropped the plush off a boat and into the ocean and was devastated. I thought it would be a cute sentimental gift to purchase a used copy for them, because in the book, “the penguin always comes back.” However, it turns out that this book is not only out of print; it’s incredibly rare. I can’t seem to find it on sale anywhere online, I've checked countless real-life vintage and antique stores, and it’s only available in like three libraries in the world--one of which is the Bodleian Library and another is the British Library, which are both required to have every book published in the United Kingdom--according to Worldcat. I couldn’t even get it on interlibrary loan because of how rare it supposedly is.
I do not know how my spouse, who grew up in semi-rual Pennsylvania, had a copy of this book as a child. But he did. And I have been on the hunt for ages.
Can anyone in the tumblr hivemind help me find it? Do you have a copy you would be willing to sell me? Do you know where I might acquire one?
Just a little more info on this:
It was part of the Tiny Hugs series published by Readers Digest in the 90s. (I think this particular book came out in 1997). The authors were Muff Singer and Risa Sherwood Gordon.
Another mystery on this:
Why is it in two of the UK legal deposit libraries, but not in the U.S. Library of Congress--the U.S.'s legal deposit library--when the book was, afaik, publihsed in the U.S.?
The only library in North America that has a copy appears to be the one at Skidmore College, a small liberal arts college in Upstate New York. Why there???
tumblr user runrundoyourstuff, when pondering a picture book for babies c. 1997.
