QUACK!

Bilingual, in a way, this tale of a duck who rockets to the Moon, then parachutes back when homesickness strikes, is told partly in English, partly in Quack, a one-word duck language. The sense comes not from the words themselves as from the way they’re read: “Quack quack quacked Quack. Quack quack quack quack—the moon!” The decision not to use quotation marks was a mistake, but other punctuation, plus changes in type size and placement, do provide helpful cues, and the quilted illustrations, which incorporate a vast array of patterned and textured fabric pieces anchored by expressive lines of stitching, have an artless look that fits the simple plot nicely. A bit more likely to quack up young audiences than Chris Raschka’s somewhat more difficult Waffle (2001), this is destined to become an offbeat storytime favorite—especially when paired with Martin Waddell’s Farmer Duck, illustrated by Helen Oxenbury (1991), or similarly onomatopoetic farmyard tales. (Picture book. 5-7)