Penelope Piper Trivia

Writing the poem

  • Penelope was invented by debut author Karen Kappen to capitalize on the familiarity that nearly everyone has with the Peter Piper tongue twister. Inspired by the word “princess,” Karen focused the plot around Penelope’s pursuit of increasingly outrageous goals.
  • The form of the poem is extremely precise. For all 88 lines, the words are arranged in a strict trimeter (each line starting on an unstressed “pickup” syllable followed by the recurring pattern of stressed-unstressed-unstressed), forming a pattern of alternating 12- and 11-syllable lines with rhymes on the second and fourth lines of each stanza.
  • The poem required immense planning due to the alliterative requirements. To start off, Karen created short lists of “P” words that were grouped by concept, then ranked the concepts according to where they fit in the escalation of the story, then planned how to transition between them.
  • While writing, Karen kept a chart of words starting with “P” that was eventually sorted by part of speech.
  • While the story is about the dangers of pursuing fame for fame’s sake, “fame” does not start with a “P,” so many alternate words/phrases were used, including “public approval,” “praise,” and “popularity.”
  • Writing this story was the ultimate puzzle as there was a constant tension between keeping the writing at a level appropriate for children, maintaining the form and meter, communicating the intended meaning within the story, and using as many unique “P” words in succession as possible.
  • It took about 4.5 months to write the story.
  • There are 686 total words in the poem, 235 of which begin with “P” (34%). Of these 235 words, 197 of them are unique. There are 12 instances of “Penelope” and 6 of “Piper.” There are 339 total instances of the letter “P.”
  • Penelope lives in a fictional land called Peloria. While perusing a list of Latin words starting with P, Karen decided that this one sounded like it could be a nation. Since it refers to a clam shape, Pelorian lore says that the island nation got its name from early cartographers who noted the rough clam shape that is portrayed on the map in the President’s office.
  • The motto of Peloria is “E passio perla” meaning, “From suffering, a pearl.” It reflects both the history of Peloria and the individual arc of Penelope’s story.
  • The Pelorian flag consists of three blue stripes with a white circle in the center, representing a pearl in the sea. The flag can be seen when Penelope becomes President.
  • There is a brief historical and geographical record of Peloria that informed the illustrations, covering the nation’s settlement on the HMS Providence, the change in the spelling from “Paeloria,” the naming of some of its towns, and an overview of its economy and government.
  • In her various undertakings, Penelope dabbles in a variety of major industries: agriculture, food service, fine arts, clothing manufacturing, transportation, medicine, scientific research, and politics.

Illustrating the story

  • There is no physical description of Penelope in the poem as she is characterized more by her actions and values than by her appearance, so it took several months for the author and illustrator to finalize what she looks like.
  • Penelope’s pet pig, Polly, is never mentioned by name in the poem so she is identified by the nametag on her collar. To show the passage of time in the story, Polly grows from a piglet to a medium-sized pig.
  • The puppies are modeled after Ian’s family dog, Ginger, who is a goldendoodle.
  • The marionette puppet show features Shakespeare’s villain Shylock as a teddy bear.
  • “Pickled peppers” can’t actually be picked (unless one refers to selecting as opposed to harvesting)! Peppers can only be pickled after they are picked, rendering the traditional tongue twister nonsensical. As a result, Karen and Ian had to decide how to represent Peter’s pickled pepper wares in the market/fair scene and they chose to include jars of pickled peppers, though they initially had only fresh peppers.
  • Paul’s pie display includes a pie chart.
  • There is one pear tree in the story and it contains a partridge.
  • The spread of pages containing the fruit trees was the first finalized illustration, though the pizza spread was created first.
  • Ian’s 5th grade art teacher taught him how to draw the ponytail worn by the nurse waiting in line for pizza. Though her ID tag was too small to contain text, she is named “Ashley,” a reference to Ian’s brother’s imaginary girlfriend, coined as a result of mispronouncing the word “actually.”
  • There are two self-portraits of Ian in the illustrations, one in Penelope’s painting studio and one in her work area. The latter was intended to be a placeholder for other artwork but was left in accidentally.
  • There are many boxes in front of the airplane because Ian had trouble getting the landing gear to look right and elected to sidestep the issue.
  • Various “P” words that didn’t make the cut for the poem appear as concepts in the illustrations, such as the pokeweed (the “poisonous plant”) and the poppies and pansies in the field at the end of the story.
  • Penelope’s pending patent is from the PPO, which is the Peloria Patent Office. The patent is technically for a pocket-sized parachute, though this description did not make the cut for the poem and contained too much text to fit in the illustration.
  • Though Penelope typically always wears a flower in her hair, she places the flower in a vase when she is President. This, along with her formal attire and hairstyle, distinguishes who she was from who she has become. When she abandons her pursuit of fame, the flower returns to her hair.