SITTING DUCKS

Bedard’s satirical picture book debut features his poster duck, who, with his many cloned brethren, figure here as the product of the Colossal Duck Factory. It’s a prosperous concern operated under the stern gaze of a gang of alligators; one egg rolls loose off the vast conveyor belt system and lands at the foot of an alligator worker. Rather than being snapped up, literally, the little duck is gently carried home in the alligator’s lunchbox. There, friendship blooms and the ugly truth is revealed: Colossal Duck Factory cranks out the fowl for patÇ and kabob. The duck concocts a plan (get fit and fly south) to liberate his kind, and they are all free before winter, including the renegade alligator. It is good to see a duck tinkering with destiny, and it is grand to see him turn a potentially depressing ending into a happy one, even if his friend—dreaming of chicken, perhaps apropos of a sequel—makes the other ducks a shade nervous. (Picture book. 6-10)