BABY DUCK’S NEW FRIEND

Hard as it may be to imagine, a rubber ducky becomes a dangerous companion in this father-son collaboration. Mama Duck has forbidden Baby Duck to pass the stone bridge unless he's with a friend who can fly. Imagine his excitement when a yellow stranger plummets out of the sky (actually, it fell off a passing truck) and without a word proceeds to float downstream. Baby Duck follows, past a waterfall (" 'Oh my! The river is broken!' "), an inquisitive fox, and at last, scariest of all, out to a storm-tossed sea. Though the illustrations' software-applied colors have an artificially uniform, glossy look, almost like animation cels, the figures are formed with Frank Asch's familiar, seemingly artless simplicity. In the end, the ducks are both washed up onto a beach; the rubber one is collected by a passing boy, the feathered one discovers that he can fly and wings back to Mama. Like all better "leaving the nest" tales for very young readers, this carries the reassuring message that, yes, the wide world can be dangerous as well as exciting, but you can go home again. (Picture book. 4-6)