Note to the author: Hazel Prior, you never fail to uplift me. Thank you for sending your light out into the Cosmos. Your books give me hope for the world; bolster my courage to try to help save it; and always leave me with happy tears. Granny McReedy inspires me to never give up exploring and learning and growing.

• Karen Molenaar Terrell, author of the Adventures with Dad series

Quotes from Gone with the Penguins:

“We will take each day as it comes. Neither of us is a stranger to grief, but we are united and we are strong. Old age is remarkably edifying. Like wartime, it highlights the fragility of life, and its preciousness. Walk, for tomorrow you may be lame. Admire the flowers, for tomorrow you may be blind. Listen to the birds, for tomorrow you may be deaf. Hug those you love, for tomorrow they may be gone. So may you. It is more important to enjoy the moment than to worry about future ones or regret past ones.”
***

“To walk is to think. To walk is to observe. To walk is to take in the wonders of the world.”
***

“Strong?” she mutters. “Well, I must say, ‘strong’ is open to interpretation. I used to believe it meant hardness, blocking off one’s feelings, never sharing, never letting on, never crying. And I suspect you think strength means diving headlong into adventures. But real strength also means trusting. Trusting others, and trusting yourself, too. Allowing yourself to feel what you feel. Knowing that, although we cannot see it, there is more, much more, beyond.”
***

“It’s the Aurora Australis, the Southern Lights,” Sir Robert gasps.

“We gaze and gaze. It seems that all the crazy, miraculous, wonderful things that have been hiding throughout my life now cannot contain themselves any longer; they are spilling out across the universe.”
***

“And slowly the swirl of snowflakes clears, and reveals hundreds upon hundreds of similar families grouped behind them, smudges of grey, black, yellow and white blending into the whiter white. Tiny chicks peek out from brood pouches, insulated by their parents’ padding. Toddlers waddle about in fuzzy fleeces, bedraggled wet fur on their nether regions, dragging tiny tails behind them. Adults look on or usher them forward. Every mother and father is swollen with pride, brimming with devotion; almost unbearable sweetness in the snow.”
***

“How can I expain to them this fire that burns within me? They see me with myopic eyes; they see me as too old. They do not realize that every old person contains a young person, one who remains wide open to change, to hope, to possibility.”
***

“We have music, though,” Eileen puts in. “And all sorts of hobbies. Did Darwin explain that? I don’t suppose tiddlywinks or knitting or singing help me survive, but they do make life so much nicer.”
***

“A ‘like’ is apparently a mark of approval from your peers. Young people collect and count them to measure their own self-worth.”
***

“Phones nowadays aren’t content to be merely phones; they pompously insist on being cameras, encyclopedias, calculators, personal trainers, news reporters, gossipmongers and much else besides. In fact, with such receptacles containing one’s entire life, one scarecely needs a brain at all. I have chosen not to possess such a machine. My brain has always worked perfectly well, and should it require a little boost, all I need to do is to consult Eileen.”
***

“No challenge should be faced without great hope, bold lipstick and a smart, good-quality handbag.”
***