Every year, I bake my children a birthday cake designed around their favourite book. This year my daughter chose Duck in a Truck! This fabulous series by Jez Alborough is her absolute favourite and she can read several of the books off by heart.
It all started when we read Fix it Duck. While it’s not the first in the series it works fine as a standalone and is packed with hilarious calamitous ways Duck tries to fix things.
Plop goes the drip that drops in the cup. Duck looks down and Duck looks up. It’s a leak in the roof! He needs some help from his friend Sheep but Sheep has problems of their own and soon things go from bad to worse…
My daughter fell in love with Duck and soon we wanted to find out how Duck became friends with Sheep, Frog and Goat. This unlikely friendship started when Duck’s truck got stuck in the muck!
Duck in a Truck is the first book in the series and is great to read along. It is also the book my daughter wanted to base her cake around.
This is the tale of a duck in a truck –
a truck that was stuck in some yucky brown muck.
A sheep in a jeep and a frog in a bush
saw the truck stuck and gave it a push.
But the truck stayed stuck!
What now, can you guess?
Could a goat in a boat
get them out of this mess?
If you find your children get as hooked on this series as my daughter, have no fear, Super Duck is here! We were so pleased to discover further books in the series for give us more funny adventures with Duck, Sheep, Goat and Frog.
Goat is eager to try out his new kite with the help of friends, Sheep and Frog. But, just they are about to see if it will fly, Super Duck arrives in his super truck. And, as always when Duck is around, things are bound to go wrong! Indeed it is not long before Frog is carried up into the sky on the end of the kite’s string. Poor Frog! Can Super Duck save the day?
The fourth book in this series we’ve thoroughly enjoyed is Captain Duck.
As usual with Duck, things get terribly out of hand when he takes the long-suffering Frog and Sheep on a trip out to sea in Goat’s boat! But although Duck likes to think of himself as an expert sailor he soon runs into problems and the friends have to spend a long, cold night out on the rolling waves.
Each book in the Duck series has a graphic comic book style which is really fun and compliments the rhyme. The stories have catchy lines that my daughter delights in joining along. I highly recommend this series and hope you enjoy it as much as we do!
Beautiful bright new covers for this series came out in 2009, published by HarperCollins.
ISBN: 978-0007302628
ISBN: 978-0007302895
ISBN: 978-0007273270
ISBN: 978-0007302901
About Jez Alborough
Jez is the author and illustrator of 48 books for children. His Eddy and the Bear trilogy (which began with the much-loved Where’s My Teddy in 1992) has sold nearly four and a half million copies and was made into an BAFTA award-winning animated television series.
Duck in the Truck (published in 1999) heralded the start of another bestselling series, this time featuring the irrepressible Duck and his three friends – Frog, Goat and Sheep. There are currently nine books in the Duck series and almost than 1.5 million copies have been sold.
In 2000 Jez created Hug – a powerful and touching book of only three words about a baby chimpanzee called Bobo who loses his Mom. Oprah Winfrey raved about it on her show when she chose it for her recommended reading list while Richard Curtis (the writer and director of Four Weddings and a Funeral) selected it as one of his ‘Best Books’, calling it ‘classic family drama which holds up well next to Jez’s other masterpieces.’ Bobo went on to star in thee more classics; Tall ( which along with Hug won the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Platinum Book Award) Yes and Play. The series has sold almost 3 million copies.
Jez lives in West London. You can read more about his books for children in on his website or follow him on Facebook.
I am very grateful to the publishers for providing me with complimentary copies of these books. This voluntary feature contains my honest opinion.
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