Recently I've been pushed to do a total clean-up of, well, everything, forcing me to go through long forgotten piles of papers, toys and books. It's not all work and no fun, it turns out, as I've made some really interesting, forgotten penguin gems.

First up of those is Iltasatujen aarteet (translates as Bedtime Story Treasures), a fairytale anthology from 1984 written by Anna Tauriala and illustrated by the author, Riitta Lestinen, Mervi Tammi and Matleena Tauriala. While I recall the book being my favorite of the sort when I was a kid, I knew there had to be some bigger reason it was still around after all these years. The picture on the cover made me skim through it and soon enough I came across the 'why'.

The book features a story called Pingviinit pulassa (Penguins in trouble), a tale of tiny penguin Pontus who, worried by the ever-melting ice cap beneath the penguin colony, decides to solve the problem before it's too late. What follows is a cosmic tale involving wise whales, a penguin chick traveling to stars with a self-made snow-rocket and his triumphant return via surfing on a shooting star.