NEAR TRAGEDY AT THE WATERFALL

Prize winning Virginia Campbell (New Feathers for the Old Goose, 1956) does the sort of duckling watercolors that the eye lingers over, but the story line fails to support the art work because it is both over-cute and over-long. On Easter Day Sir Francis Drake leaves Mrs. Duck to introduce six new-born ducklings to the delights and dangers of water. Each duckling is given a name and each is assigned a human diosyncracy. Unfortunately, instead of stopping with the incident of nearly drowned ducklings at the waterfall, the story is sketchily continued even unto the third and fourth generations produced by the original six. In the middle, ""Momsy Womsy"" quacks ut a precious-wecious lullaby and its all just a little too ducky. You might call t a half- quacked effort because the illustrations are beautiful.