Hi there! I’m Septina Nash, the magical purple-haired letter-writing star of The Penguins of Doom by Greg R. Fishbone, published by Blooming Tree Press. Watch this site for more information about me!
This remarkable footage of flying penguins was captured by A BBC nature crew and released on April 1st of this year. Isn't it spectacular?
My pet penguins don't fly, but if they did there would probably be some more rocking music playing for them in the background.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dfWzp7rYR4Today my book is finally being unleashed upon the public--unleashed like a wild tiger, hooray!!!
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!!!
Pre-Order Kits
In the spirit of making your pre-order experience as effective as possible, author Greg R. Fishbone is offering a Penguins of Doom pre-order kit that includes:
Within the US, just send an envelope addressed to yourself with 41 cents of postage (to cover the rate increase coming up in May) to:
THE PENGUINS OF DOOM
P.O. Box 541401
Waltham, MA 02454-1401
If you want the bookplate signed to a specific person, please spell out the name in your most legible print.
You may already be pre-ordering a copy of the next Harry Potter, so you won't even need to make a special trip. The penguins thank you for your support!
FROM THE DESK OF SEPTINA NASH
To: You, Reading This Blog
Your House
Your Home Town
Wherever That Is
Dear You,
They say you can't judge a book by its cover, but that's because you're not a judge on the U.S. Supreme Court. Those folks can judge anything they want--book covers, pie-eating contests, and sometimes even laws.
Right at this moment, as you're reading these words, the nine U.S. Supreme Court judges are sitting around their courthouse, rubbing pie-stains from their black robes, reading this blog, and scowling at the cover below. They're trying to figure out whether The Penguins of Doom is a goofy-but-harmless storybook or an alien plot for warping your mind.
From the title, they probably think this book is only about penguins and doom. Too bad they haven't read inside, or they'd also know about the mad scientists, robot doubles, rock stars, skateboards, shrink rays, empty yogurt containers, mysteriously-missing triplets, and other stuff that wouldn't fit in the title.
The judges, seeing that this book's cover looks a bit like a school notebook, must also think that a lot of math homework gets done during the story. Boy are they ever wrong! I didn't get any math homework done while writing this book, and I'm pretty sure you won't get any done while reading it. But don't worry--you'll learn how to write awesome excuse letters and always stay out of trouble, just like me!
Finally, the nine judges of the U.S. Supreme Court will be impressed by the serious and respectable name listed as the book's author: GREG R. FISHBONE. It's a name that screams out, "POWER! CHARM! HANDSOME GOOD LOOKS!" But really, I have no idea who that guy is or how he got his name printed on the cover of my book. Quinn says the publisher must have thought him up as a way to sell more copies.
The letters in this book were all written by me, Septina Nash, at my desk in homeroom, on the school bus before class, or quickly scribbled in a burger joint in Argentina. One was even written in the second-floor girls' bathroom at O.W. Holmes Middle School, third stall from the right. I won't tell you which letter, but you'll totally be able to guess!
After reviewing this cover, I'm sure the judges will say: "We, the judges of the U.S. Supreme Court, nine of the greatest pie-eating champions of all time, find that The Penguins of Doom is a goofy-but-harmless storybook."
Suckers!
Sincerely,
Septina Nash, An Alien Plot For Warping Your Mind
I want to thank everyone for their kindness and concern after rumors stated that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows would be released on 07/07/07--even though I'd already claimed that as my publishing date for The Penguins of Doom.
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!
When you read my book--and I know you will--you'll find out that I've been in a lot of music videos. Usually for two to five seconds, but once for as long as seven! But I've never been in a music video as fun and entertaining as this one.
The song is "Word Disassociation" by Lemon Demon, because Lemon Demon rules!
My editor says I have to get blurbs for my book. She says that blurbs are those quotes they put on the cover to convince people that they'll like a book because someone else already likes it.
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.
Who would have guessed that Stephen Colbert and I dislike so many of the same things!
Okay, so here's the thing about my book... You know how a normal book is "organized" into "chapters" that tell a "story"? Mine's not. Mine is more of a "collection" of "letters" that I wrote to people, and somebody's gone and "collected them up" in the order I wrote them. I think maybe they found them all in the dumpster behind my school...or something. I'll have to look into that.
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!
I'm outraged! I'm upset! My mind is racing a billion million miles a minute! Why? Because my editor thinks I'm too much like Harry Potter, that's why!
And what's wrong with being like Harry Potter, you ask? Absolutely nothing. I love Harry Potter! Those are some great books, and movies, and video games, and...have they started selling Harry Potter toilet paper yet? Because I'd totally use some of that. "Check it out, I'm wiping my butt with Snape and the Dementors!"
But the thing is, all those Potter books have similar titles: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone; Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban; Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix; and all that. And since those books did so well, hundreds of other books have come out that are all called "Person's Name and the Something of Something".
Maybe I don't read as many books as Quinn, but you'd think I would have noticed someting like that before calling my book Septina Nash and the Penguins of Doom.
So here's a handy guide to the differences between me and Harry, to keep you from getting confused.
Harry: Has a lightning-bolt scar on his forehead.
Septina: Has no scars, but has gotten scraped up a bit from skateboarding accidents.
Harry: Uses a wand to perform magic.
Septina: Uses a baton to lead the marching band into the frog pond.
Harry: Attends Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in England.
Septina: Attends O.W. Holmes Middle School in Conwell, Massachusetts.
Harry: Is an only child.
Septina: Is the youngest of seven children including a set of triplets.
Harry: Parents were murdered by Lord Voldemort when he was a baby.
Septina: Parents are still alive and have never met Lord Voldemort.
Harry: Arch-enemy is a powerful wizard with a gang of Death Eaters.
Septina: Arch-enemy is a mad scientist with a gang of deadly ninjas.
Harry: Can't finish his potions homework because he's practicing for the big Quiddich tournament.
Septina: Can't finish her math homework because she's practicing for the Olympic Freestyle Skateboarding competition.
There! Now that you can see all the differences, I won't have to change the title of my book.
Penguins get into a lot of stuff--you get used to that after you've lived with them for a while. Sometimes we find them sunbathing on the roof. Sometimes they sneak into the movie theater and toss herring bits at people from the back row. And sometimes they follow us to school, take math exams, and wreck the curve for everybody else.
My penguins have gotten onto MySpace.
They have their own group there.
They've made many friends. There will be no stopping them now.
Septina Nash is not an eggplant.
Septina Nash is not an elf.
Septina Nash is not a public transit system
Septina Nash isn't old.
Septina Nash isn't new.
Septina Nash is a timeless classic.
Septina Nash is everybody.
Septina Nash is nobody.
Septina Nash has no limits.
Septina Nash is one of three.
Septina Nash is one of seven.
Septina Nash is one in a billion.
Septina Nash has purple hair.
Septina Nash has a heroic mullet.
Septina Nash is cool.
Septina Nash has holes in her stockings.
Septina Nash is always barefoot.
Septina Nash loves everyone.
Septina Nash hates Toby Hart.
Septina Nash is coming soon.
Septina Nash is already here.
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