Kids know silly when they see it, and from the first glance at Jeff Mack’s new picture book, Duck in the Fridge, they’ll likely be prepared to giggle. The title alone made a four-year-old friend of mine crack up! What in the world should they expect with a title like that?
As they open the book, they’ll see an exuberant boy bouncing on his bed, clad in pajamas, but clearly not all that sleepy. When his dad settles in to read him a bedtime story, the boy asks him why he always reads from Mother Goose tales at night. Thus begins the dad’s tale of the time he found- yup, you guessed it- a duck in the fridge.
Dad, as a little boy himself, becomes the main character in a wacky story of farm animals in surprise places in his home. The original duck, and several of his ducky pals, truly wreak havoc in the house, driving the little boy version of Dad crazy. When he calls 1-800-DUCK-B-GONE for a solution, he doesn’t get quite what he expected. In fact, the problems only get worse, and the wacky factor continues to increase for several turns of pages. The solution that he finds brings the book full circle to the beginning and the question asked of grown-up Dad at story time. A surprise twist to the very end of the tale will certainly provide one more big laugh for the kids (and parents!).
Jeff Mack is known for his silly stories, and this one continues that trend, especially with the text in the speech bubbles, filled with puns and jokes preschoolers will quickly pick up. As either a rousing read-aloud with a group of kids, or one-on-one between parent and child before bed, this is a fun picture book guaranteed to bring giggles.