“In the darkest corner of the zoo / There stood a gloomy shack. / A nearby scrawl / Read: ‘KEEP OUT ALL!! / JUST LEAVE ME BE! Signed QUACK.’ ” The misanthropic duck is crabby because he alone has no family, so when he sees a clutch of “ORPHANED EGGS: HOMES NEEDED,” he decides to adopt. But what he hatches (“IT’S ALIVE!” he gloats) is no duck, and the panicked fowl takes off through a dark and stormy night, pursued by his mutant hatchling. Jones gleefully uses every cliché in the book, from lurid lettering and backgrounds to effective use of silhouettes and shadows. Bardhan-Quallen, too, takes advantage of horror-movie tropes, but she also mixes in some instruction in the form of cumulative nouns for animals. The surprise twist at the end happily resolves Quack’s fatherless state. (Picture book. 5-8)
