My pet penguins don't fly, but if they did there would probably be some more rocking music playing for them in the background.

In order to celebrate this momentous book occasion, my publishers have stationed agents in homes across the United States on October 31st and authorized them, for one night only, to give out official Penguins of Doom celebratory candies to any child who delivers the secret Penguins of Doom password phrase, "TRICK OR TREAT".

We're expecting millions of kids to participate and collect billions of dollars worth of chocolate bars, hard candies, and candy corn, all in celebration of me and my book. Costumes are encouraged, and you might even be able to purchase a pumpkin and carve it into a Quinn o' Lantern to resemble my triplet brother's head. Have fun and remember the penguins!!!

Sure it would be cool to read Harry's seventh book on the seventh day of the seventh month of the seventh year of the century, but my book's got even more sevens in it. Me and Quinn are in the seventh grade, I'm a seventh child, my parents are seventh children, and so are all four of my grandparents. You'll find so many sevens in The Penguins of Doom that the only day it could possibly come out would be 07/07/07.

But it's all cool now. I had a talk with J.K. and asked her to delay her book until 07/21/07. 21 is 3 times 7, so her publishing date can also be written as 07 /(7+7+7)/ 07 and that should be enough sevens for anybody!

The song is "Word Disassociation" by Lemon Demon, because Lemon Demon rules!

Thank you for your kind offer to be my personal penguin, which you presented in the downloadable song on the Workman Publishing website. Normally I would jump at the chance to have a singing waterfowl of my very own, except that I've recently come into possession of three personal penguins already. A fourth might be a bit much, since Mom and Dad are already complaining about the cost of herring bits and Purina Penguin Chow.

I've asked my triplet-brother Quinn if he might want you as his personal penguin, and he pointed out that you're really not a penguin at all. From the pictures we've seen online, you're not covered with feathers and your hands and body seem almost human. It made no sense until Quinn explained that you are actually a Monkee and only pretending to be a penguin for the song because nothing good rhymes with Monkee except chunky and flunky.

So here is my counter-offer. I will let you be my personal Monkee, and one of my penguins can be your personal penguin. That way everybody wins! I suggest you choose Spots over Stripes or Solids--he's the most musical of the bunch and can play piano while you sing.

Sincerely,

Septina Nash, Your Personal Penguin-Owner

The first blurbs I came up with were these:

"Awk, awk, awawk!" --Spots the Penguin

"Do I have a what for you? A blurb? Hold on, let me check in the back room." --Guy Who Works at the Local Shoe Store

"Please insert twenty-five cents for the next ten minutes." --Electronic Lady on the Payphone

"Nope, no blurbs back there, but we can special order them." -- Guy Who Works at the Local Shoe Store again

I thought I'd done a pretty good job of collecting these, since it had taken me almost twenty minutes of work, but that wasn't good enough for my editor. "We need blurbs from other authors, preferably ones who have published a lot of books."

"I'm pretty sure the Electronic Lady on the Payphone also publishes the Yellow Pages directories," I said.

"Try again," she said. "We need blurbs from big authors."

"Like J.K. Rowling?"

She nodded. "Now you're thinking! J.K. Rowling has sold almost as many books as William Shakespeare and God."

"Hmmm," I said, and smiled to myself.

The next day, on our way to school, Quinn and I spotted my first blurb for THE PENGUINS OF DOOM.

"What do you think?" I asked. "Even better than J.K. Rowling!"

"Can you prove that God wrote that message?" Quinn asked.

"Can you prove that He didn't?" I shot back. "It's a genuine miracle!"

"Maybe," said Quinn, "but why would God need to break the padlock on the church message board?"

"I don't know."

"And why would God leave footprints from here to the storage shed in the churchyard?"

"No idea."

"And why would God wear the same size sneakers as you?"

"What can I say? God works in mysterious ways and has tiny feet. Deal with it."

I'm still waiting to hear back from Shakespeare.

Why you be hatin' on the penguins? There's no reason to fear the penguins. They're cute and cuddly and generally don't deserve to be beaten with sticks.

Sure, you and your Chilean riot police buddies may have beaten hundreds of penguins in the past, but this time the joke is on you--that's not even a real penguin! It's just a kid dressed up as his school mascot, the Santiago High Submissive Penguin of Non-Violence, during a demonstration in support of higher teacher salaries!

Now don't you guys feel foolish?

Here's a simple test you can use the next time your heavily armed troop is confronted by a creature that may or may not be a penguin. Ask, "Excuse me, sir or madam, but might you happen to be a penguin?"

If the answer is yes, you know that you have a real, live, genuine penguin. And if the answer is no, you either have a human being in a penguin costume or a real, live, genuine penguin who is lying because he's seen this picture.

Sincerely,
Septina Nash, Member SPCP (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Penguins)

I appreciate that you're giving away five free autographed books to lucky kids who write about the stuff they did this summer, but what if we can't think of anything to write about?

My summer was extremely boring as always, with only seven alien invasions, three journeys to the center of the Earth, six trips through time, one trip to see my brother enter a rhino-riding contest, and a failed attempt to convince Pluto not to leave our Solar System. How am I ever supposed to compete against other kids who had really exciting summers?

Sure, I could make stuff up and say that I went to an amusement park or swam in the ocean, but you'd probably see right through that. I just hope that other kids have thrilling enough lives to download these instructions and send a short paragraph-long essay to your email address by September 7th. Thanks a lot!

Sincerely,

Septina Nash, Summer Blockbuster

Who would have guessed that Stephen Colbert and I dislike so many of the same things!

Anyway, there's some question about whether THE PENGUINS OF DOOM is a "chapter book" without "chapters" or a "letter book"--which is something nobody has ever heard of. Normally I wouldn't care, but there are snacks on the line. If the book is a chapter book, I would get delicious cupcakes from a nice library lady in New York. But if it's a letter book, I'd only get some kind of consolation prize. Like bran muffins. Not even Sexta would eat bran muffins!

Update: They're telling me now that my book is "epistolary," which means "written in the form of letters." It also means that enough people have done books like this before that they had to come up with an entirely new word to describe it. Like LONGER LETTER LATER by Paula Danziger and Ann Martin. And here I thought I was the only one!

*sigh* No cupcakes for me!