10 Little Rubber Ducks
Starred Review. PreSchool-Grade 1 - Carle takes an actual incident, when numerous bathtub toys fell off a container ship and floated to various places, and distills it to create a marvelous counting/concept adventure. The story opens at a factory where assembly-line workers are painting details onto bright yellow rubber ducks. The toys are then loaded onto a freighter destined for faraway countries. During a storm, 10 rubber ducks fall into the sea. Each one floats in a different direction - west, east, north, south, left, right, up, down, this way, and that way - and encounters a different animal (a dolphin, seal, polar bear, etc.). The 10th one meets a mother duck with her offspring and bobs along with them to their nest. The ducks all bid "Good night" to one another with a "Quack," while the newcomer says "Squeak!" (Children can press the page to hear a squeak.) Carle's signature cut-paper collages burst with color, texture, light, and motion, delighting the eye and bringing out the text's nuances. The ordinal numbers are shown in bold type that stands out from the narrative. More accessible to younger readers than Eve Bunting'sDucky(Clarion, 1997), this book makes a wonderful read-aloud for storytimes or one-on-one sharing. It's a definite 10.- Linda Staskus, Cuyahoga County Public Library, Parma, OHCopyright &copy; Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.