Penguin Days

A 2020 Bank Street Best Book and
the second title in the acclaimed Slug Days Stories, now in paperback .

Lauren
and her family drive to a farm in North Dakota to visit relatives and celebrate
her Auntie Joss’ wedding. But Lauren finds to her dismay that she is expected
to do more than meet adults who hug her and invade her personal space. Lauren
is going to be—horror of all horrors—a flower girl.

Lauren
has Autism Spectrum Disorder, and she sees the world a little differently from
other kids. What makes her comfortable are her routines and her strategies to
manage her anxiety, which can get out of control in no time. So it is a
challenge to deal with her rambunctious cousins, try on scratchy dresses, and
follow impossible directions about going down aisles
slowly-but-not-like-a-sloth and tossing pretend flowers around. Is it any
surprise that Lauren flips her lid more than once? But while having an extended
family seems like a lot of trouble at first, she’s about to learn just how much
they can care for one another.

In Penguin Days, two award winners revisit
second-grader Lauren from the acclaimed Slug
Days with equal humor and empathy. Drawing on her experience teaching
children with ASD, Sara Leach creates an energetic character who stomps
eloquently off the page. And Rebecca Bender's delightful black-and-white
illustrations show, in Lauren's fraught situations and facial expressions, all
the love and assertiveness that could possibly dwell together in one unique,
little person.  
A
family wedding means lots of new things for Lauren: an itchy flower-girl dress,
bizarre customs, and strange, new family members…who might just make it all
worthwhile. The second book in the Slug Days
Stories, now in paperback