It's Useful to Have a Duck - Perfect Picture Book Friday

First, a note: If you missed my blog post on Tuesday last week, you have until May 5 to leave a comment on that post to enter the BOOK GIVEAWAY for Debbie Dadey's newest chapter book in her Mermaid Tales series with Simon & Schuster. 

    Now, on to today's "business."

    Last Friday I reviewed Isol's Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award winning book, Nocturne: Dream Recipes. I'm pleased to say that I didn't order just one of her books to get to know this author. The second book is just as original. And although I'm calling it the second book, because it's the second to be reviewed here, it was actually published five years earlier. So here's more charming work from Isol.

Title: It's Useful to Have a Duck

"Sleeve" on right

Author: Isol  Note: her website is NOT in English

Illustrator: Isol

Publisher: GroundwoodBooks/House of Anansi Press, 2007

Audience: ages 3 and up 

Themes: Point of View

Opening and Synopsis: I said this last week, and now I'll say it again. I can’t start with the words. The structure of the book is part of the experience. A little boy finds a rubber duck and uses him as a hat, a straw, a nose. But how does the duck use the little boy? 

By turning the book over, readers find the same story told from the duck’s point of view. This picture book/board book crossover uses the same images, shaded yellow from the boy's point of view, and shaded blue from the duck's point of view.  

While it looks like a board book, I agree with the assessment on Kirkus Reviews:
   "Do not be deceived by the simple-looking board format: This is not for babies. Rather, it      
    challenges children who have accepted the initial premise with developmentally appropriate 
    narcissism to regard the world from the opposite perspective."

The boy's opening line: I found a duck and I picked him up. 





 


 

The duck's opening line. I found a boy and he picked me up.
     

The book sleeve has all the publisher and copyright information. I'm probably a lot more careful than a kid would be, and the edges of the book cover are already getting that chewed up look, I assume from the effort needed to get the book back in its sleeve. Other than that, it's a winner. Note that the pages are hooked to each other accordion-style, so there's no page turning in the classic sense. It's sixteen linked pages on one side and another sixteen on the reverse. Some of the spreads are laugh out loud funny. I especially liked the duck "waxing" his bill in the boy's ear.

There's a good Youtube review of this book here. 
Sharing this book is a good opportunity to talk about the adage that there are two sides to every story! Literally two sides to this book.


This review is part of PPBF (perfect picture book Friday) where bloggers share great picture books at Susanna Leonard Hill's site. She keeps an ever-growing list of Perfect Picture Books.