FIX-IT DUCK

Alborough’s Duck (Duck in the Truck, 2000) is a forgetful, accident-prone goofball, but with his can-do enthusiasm and his watch cap and tool chest, he has the charm of a French comedian. While Alborough’s verse doesn’t display a whole lot of verbal dazzle—“Plop! goes the drip that drops in the cup. / Duck looks down and Duck looks up. / A leak in the roof. Oh, what bad luck! / This is a job for . . . FIX-IT DUCK.” But he needs a ladder to reach his roof, which requires a trip to Sheep’s trailer house. And sure enough, Sheep appears to have a leak in his skylight—a skylight that Duck, in the thrall of neighborly fix-itiveness, quickly turns into splinters of glass. That occasions a wild, jerry-rigged tow to Goat’s shed to get Sheep’s trailer out of the rain and ends with Sheep’s home flipped on its side in Goat’s duck pond. Alborough peddles his low farce is an entirely jaunty atmosphere, complete with Duck’s fire-engine red roadster and a selection of beatific rural venues. And somehow it all seems quite plausible, which gives this installment that much more of a kick for young readers and their fix-it parents. (Picture book. 3-6)