The Duck of Billingsgate Market (review)

The Duck of Billingsgate Market is no doubt a familiar story. It is familiar, however, not because it has the jangle of cliché or the stamp of the derivative, but because its characters are as familiar as our own experience, and its theme as recurrent as love itself. It is also a beautifully written story, simple in style, direct in narration, yet never condescending to a young reader's intelligence. A parent and child can read it together as peers.

The tale is about one Tom Codley, packer of fish, an old and lonely man without family or friend. Tom finds meaning only in his work. Sometimes he likes to imagine himself "a kind of father, helping to feed the people of London." But even his fantasy is not really satisfying, for he cannot summon to mind any "particular faces" which might give meaning to his idea of fatherhood. He desires to love, but the world around him seems a blur, and he is too shy to give it focus. One day, however, he rescues a baby duck as it is about to be drowned by an evil oil slick. The duck, "Ducky Dear" as she is affectionately called, becomes the old man's company and consolation and family. She also gives Tom something to talk about, and suddenly he finds himself communicating with a fellow dockworker and an upstairs neighbor. "Ducky Dear," however, is after all a duck, and the day comes when she flies away from domesticity forever. But the old man has gained much from his experience, and ends with a loyal friend, a cheerful wife, and a happy heart.

What is most impressive about Mrs. Ziner's book is that it is heart-warming without being sentimental. Tom Codley's world maintains its potential for joy—indeed the story is a simple celebration—but the ugliness of this world is not masked, nor are its injustices ignored. Finally, the Duck of Billingsgate Market is a moral tale, for the pollution of contemporary life (here represented by the oil-smitten Thames) is something our children must be made to know, lest their youth be spent in illusion, and yield only more of what we now experience today: disillusionment and joylessness.