Publisher's Weekly Review
"This is the Duck driving home in a truck./ This is the track which is taking him back." So begins this deliciously percussive rhyming story of a feathered truck driver who becomes mired in muck and the three animal Good Samaritans (a frog, a sheep and a goat) who try to help him. As Alborough's (It's the Bear; My Friend Bear) words roll out in an infectious, hard-hitting beat with more than a few rhythmic surprises, he metes out his bold pictures in perfect accompaniment. A triptych of vignettes creates a slow-motion effect as the truck first strikes a rock, is then shown aloft, and finally hits the muck; close-up spreads focus on the exasperated characters attempting to budge the vehicle. With light-hearted tension, wry characterizations and lots of squishy mud, this tale makes for a quacking good read-aloud. Ages 3-6. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
A rhyming text relates the troubles of a duck whose truck gets stuck in the muck. Large, clear illustrations, which alternate between double-page spreads and panels of various sizes, are the main strength of the book; the art makes the most of the story's physical comedy, with exaggerated humor and an engaging animal cast, including a frog, a sheep, and a goat who all come to help out. From HORN BOOK Fall 2000, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Ages 3^-5. Duck drives along the road--not exactly looking where he's driving--when his tire hits a rock, landing his truck in the mud. Or, as the rhyming text says it, "This is the rock struck by the truck / and this is the muck / where the truck becomes stuck." Frog offers to push, then Sheep lends a hand, and finally Goat comes by with a plan that frees the truck. Carefree Duck drives off without a backward glance, though Frog, Sheep, and Goat remain stuck in the muck. The text rolls along with its thumping rhymes, while the large-scale ink-and-watercolor illustrations quietly steal the show. Deftly personified through expression and gesture, the animal characters speak through a visual convention that even young children know well: the cartoon. A pleasing picture book that invites even prereaders to share the joke. --Carolyn Phelan
