In 1908, French author Anatole France published one of the most-celebrated pieces of literature of all time, "Penguin Island." In its day, the 300-odd page novel - a scathing satirical masterpiece that critiqued the customs, rules, mores and rituals of French society - was met with unprecedented literary and commercial success. The French public was enthralled by a book that centered around the penguins of the mythical Penguinia. This tale of strutting penguins, their virtues and vices was not merely a burlesque allegory of French history, but a satire of modern man.

With gentle yet biting irony, France challenged the utopian beliefs and politics of the time, the notion of the perfectibility of mankind. Indeed, just a few years later, World War I would prove France to be a penguin prophet of sorts.

Born in 1844, France was the most prominent French writer of his time, and the 1908 release of "L'Ile des Pingouins" is his best remembered work of a long and distinguished career.

The book begins when a foolish old priest with weak eyes comes upon an island full of penguins and baptizes them. This creates a crisis in heaven as God and the saints have to decide whether to give the penguins souls. From there, France runs us through the history of the great penguin race, using our flightless friends as ridiculous metaphors for our own flightless human race.

The material here is certainly not contemporary, as France's penguins poke fun of the Church, courts, military, politics and society of the early 20th century, but the themes are eternal, as is the humor and satire. Check out Penguin Island at a library near you.

Norway has recently bestowed one of its most prestigious military honors on a penguin. The regal King penguin, known as Nils Olav, has been promoted to the rank of honorable regimental sergeant major. Hard to believe, but this bird is the first of its kind to hold the rank in the Norwegian or any other army.

Officials had been keeping quiet over his new rank, which was known only to a select few, including King Harald of Norway and senior advisers, until an official statue of the penguin was unveiled. the aforementioned bronze statue of Sgt. Major Olav is being made for the King, whom, it has been reported has a "special place near the throne" for the penguin statue.

How did this happen? How is it possible for a humble penguin to earn a country's to military honor as well as membership to the King's coveted inner circle? First of all, Olav is not your typical King, er...king penguin that is.

Retired Major Nils Egelien of the Royal Norwegian Guards explained "It all started in 1961 when the King's Guard of Norway came to the military tattoo in Edinburgh, it was then that we first became very interested in the zoo's king penguin colony. In 1972 we came back again, and this time we adopted a king whom we named Nils Olav, and promptly awarded him the honorary rank of lance corporal. In 1982, he was promoted to corporal, and by 1987 he had climbed the ladder to sergeant. His ascent through the ranks continued when in 1993 Nils was promoted once more, this time to the rank of regimental sergeant major."

If Nils Olav was aware of his status, he never showed it, according to his keeper Rob Thomas. "He was a pretty quite lad", stated to Thomas, "I think that any one penguin would soon be put down by the others if it tried to assert its superiority over the others. As all the penguins here are used to the constant company of humans from the zoo's famous daily penguin parade, the medal ceremony for Nils' most recent promotion was a piece of cake (fish) for him. It must be stated that Nils was undoubtedly the best dressed for that ceremony when compared to the Norwegians.

It's not the first time, of course, that nations have honored members of the animal kingdom. In New York's Central Park, for example, there is a statue of Balto, the hero dog of a century ago who delivered dyptheria vaccine to stricken Nome, Alaska. During the early years of the space program, various primates and "spacechimps: held honorary commissioned ranks in both the U.S. and Russian armed forces, and upon their deaths these primates were afforded full military funerals. Dogs, horses, dolphins and even elephants have played integral roles in various armed forces, rescue units and police departments around the world, and have all been awarded various medals for service and bravery. But, this is undoubtedly the first military honor or rank to be bestowed upon any species of penguin.

The Norwegian ceremony however was not without controversy, when it was discovered soon afterwards that the Nils Olav who received the military honors was not, in fact, the original Nils Olav that was adopted by the Norwegian Guards back in 1972. That Nils sadly passed on in 1987 shortly after his promotion to sergeant, and was discreetly replaced by a two-year-old king penguin double That penguin today is now known in official circles as Nils Olav II. A regal name for a regal penguin.