Tuesday, October 20, 2020

Review - Ducks!

Ducks!

by Deborah Underwood
illustrated by T. L. McBeth
Date: 2020
Publisher: Henry Holt & Company
Reading level: C
Book type: picture book
Pages: 40
Format: e-book
Source: library

A duck who wanders away from the rest of the flock must find the way back.

Ducks. Ducks? NO DUCKS!

Duck wanders away from the pond for a moment and returns to find the other ducks gone! Searching high and low, Duck discovers many clues around the city--footprints, feathers, eggs--but no ducks. Will Duck's feathered friends finally be found?

(synopsis from Goodreads)

I enjoyed this one more than I thought I might when I first started.

I picked it up because I've enjoyed Deborah Underwood's books in the past. A writing credit for this seems a stretch, though, because the majority of the text consists of "Ducks?" and "No ducks." The illustrations are very simple, but they work.

This is almost a wordless picture book, but it manages to tell a story. A duck is distracted by a butterfly, and when it looks around to find its friends, they're all missing! It then proceeds to search for the missing ducks, only to be thwarted with lookalike clues that lead it momentarily astray. Will the duck ever find its friends?

Very young children will probably appreciate the duck's predicament and its attempt to find its feathered friends. I can see this being a bit tiresome as a read-aloud title (especially if done repeatedly), but it's so simple that even pre-readers can flip through the book themselves and get the gist.

Premise: 3/5
Meter: n/a
Writing: 3/5
Illustrations: 3/5
Originality: 3/5

Enjoyment: 3/5

Overall: 3 out of 5

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