An unstuck duck (Duck in the Truck - Jez Alborough)

Member Name: powerball

Product:	Duck in the Truck - Jez Alborough
Date:	07/11/09 (83 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Attractive childrens book, funny story, well illustrated

Disadvantages: Text doesn't always flow as well as it might

Duck in the Truck is a children's book written and illustrated by Jez Aldborough and part of a series of books about the duck. We received this book as part of the "My Bookstart Treasure Chest" which is gifted to 3-4 year old children at early years settings. Bookstart is a national programme that encourages all parents and carers to enjoy books with children from an early age. The book is also available to buy - roughly around £4 from Amazon.

This large, soft-backed book has an attractive and brightly coloured picture on the front cover which immediately grabs the attention of children. A jolly duck is driving his bright red open topped truck down a country lane. There is a silver duck mascot on the front of the truck and the registration is DUCK1. If you look closely, you can also see a cheeky, wide eyed green frog peeping out from the hedge.

The story is told in simple rhyme that on the whole flows quite nicely. "This is the Duck driving home in a truck. This is the track which is taking him back." Sometimes the rhythm becomes a little unnatural - "This is the slurp - and squelch - and suck - as the sheep steps slowly through the muck" - but it always cleverly makes the reader pause allowing all the illustrations to be observed thoroughly. For me, I find myself exaggerating a northern accent as I read. There's a lot of Duck, truck, stuck and muck!

The story is of a duck happily driving home when he hits a rock which makes the duck's truck alarmingly leap into some muck, and get stuck. By the look of the severity of the incident, the duck was clearly driving too fast and without due care and attention, but we'll skirt over that moral point with our young readers because there really wouldn't be much of a story if he had happily arrived safely home without any adventure!

The frog sees the accident and offers to give a push, but without success. A rather disagreeable sheep, driving home in his jeep, comes along next and is rather unwillingly dragged in to the pushing, again without success. A sleepy goat in his motorboat is the next to get involved (and the last - I think Jez Aldborough had run out of animals that rhymed with vehicles by this stage, although I suppose we could have had a "man in a van"). The goat decides that as well as the pushing, he would attach a rope to the truck and pull with his motorboat. The wheels finally grip but as the truck starts to move quickly back onto the track, the rope snaps. But since the duck is now free he continues driving home in his truck, leaving the poor frog, sheep and goat stuck in the mud.

Equally as good as the rhyming text are the illustrations. Bright and bold colours and very clear pictures. There is a tremendous amount of detail which can be so useful for a child learning new vocabulary. For instance the duck is carrying vegetables in the back of his truck and these go flying as the truck crashes. Leeks, carrots, parsnips, potatoes and even a marrow.The expressions on the faces of the animals are also wonderful. You can just imagine the frog must be saying something like "Hey - don't just stand there - you can help push as well", to the sheep. Then the sheep, who obviously is a little above all this, desperately trying not to get his white fleece dirty in the mud, and the frog with his dirty feet, almost doubled up laughing at the sight of the sheep.

This is a very entertaining little book. It works well as a bedtime book but also is a good one for children just starting to read. My only disappointment is the ending to the book. Although it's cheeky, I guess it would have been a lot more PC if the duck had actually stopped to pick up his new friends rather than abandon them in the mud after they have come to his aid. It would be a better lesson to children - having read this story they are not really likely to help anyone out! But this is just my opinion. I haven't read the other books in the series but from looking at the pictures on the covers, the other animals are once again involved - so they obviously didn't hold a grudge against the selfish duck!

Summary: Story of a duck getting stuck in his truck and then being helped out by other animals.