Little Ducks Go by Emily Arnold McCully (review)

When a mother duck’s ducklings fall through a grate and into a storm sewer, she follows the sound of their cheeping from grate to grate her commotion alerts a human to her problem. The man opens a manhole cover and successfully retrieves the ducklings while a young girl watches; then the girl takes them to a nearby pond and releases the happily reunited birds. The minimal text of this beginning reader helpfully uses repetition of words and phrases, very short sentences (“Little ducks go. They go down”), and a large, clear sans serif font to support novice readers, especially those still at the sounding-out level. The story is more hinted at by the text than fluidly told, but the personable, detailed line and watercolor illustrations add interest to the restricted text. It’s hard to go wrong with ducklings in danger, and while this is not as stellar as Moore’s similarly themed Lucky Ducklings (BCCB 3/13), it’s quite useful, and it would be a fitting selection for a beginning reading group to tackle after a readaloud session with Moore’s book.