This is a great little story about believing in the impossible and yourself. A wayward penguin is found by the side of the road and convinces his rescuer he crashed while flying. The unusual pair tries all sorts of methods to return the penguin to the sky (all remarkably unsuccessful) until the day when the penguin finally rediscovers the secret of flight within himself. This charming, simple, and understated parable is ideal for children starting school, graduates, job-seekers, newlyweds, and anyone else who s learning to fly in unfamiliar skies. ( )

I recently had the great good fortune to stumble upon Sebastian Meschenmoser's Waiting for Winter, and being immensely impressed by the expressive power of his (mostly) pencil illustrations, I immediately began looking about for any other work of his that might be available. A German picture-book author and illustrator of some renown, his books are just beginning to be known here in the US, and Learning to Fly (Fliegen lernen in the original) was the first to be translated.

The tale of a penguin who longs to fly, and who is assisted in his ambition by a man who happens upon him one winter, it has moments of undeniable charm. Meschenmoser's drawings have a tender quality to them, as in the scene in which the man is squatting down to listen to his new friend, whose wings are outspread as he tells his story. But they can also be quite humorous, as seen in the scenes in which man and penguin do their calisthenics together. The conclusion to the story, after all the great effort invested by our two characters, has an ironic feeling of rightness to it: things happen when they are meant to happen.

All in all, this little picture-book has definite charm, although I couldn't escape from the feeling that the narrator was too self-conscious of a fabulist. I also felt that the smaller size of this title - approximately 7x6 inches - meant that the brilliant detail of Waiting for Winter was missing here. Still, this is a solid entry in a body of work that I can only hope will continue to grow - and continue to be available in English! ( )

This is a cute book about a penguin thinks he can fly and he does until a flock of regular birds flies past him and he falls. Along the way the little penguin meets a nie man who decides to him learn how to fly. The illustrations in this book are warm and humorous. ( )

This fable is about imaginations and believing in the impossible. Penguins are meant to fly, but imagination and determination takes this book to a whole different level. ( )