Little White Duck by Walt Whippo

Illustrated by Joan Paley. Little, Brown and Company, Boston. 2000.
Hardcover edition. 32 pages. ISBN 0-316-03227-1.

Joan Paley brings lovely layered collage textures to freshen this old classic song recorded years ago by the likes of Burl Ives and Danny Kaye. The setting is a staged performance with the cast (guitar-playing mouse narrator, duck, frog, bug, snake) formally introduced in promo-style posters. To ameliorate the sad demise of the bug and the forlorn emptiness of the water, the last page shows the curtain call of the characters, all bowing, with the frog holding a bouquet of roses as if to say "just kidding, it's only a play...."

The artwork is simply beautiful, the characters presented in magnified view, and the sounds amplified with funky outsized fonts. The music for the song by Bernard Zaritsky is presented just inside the title page. The format is large enough to easily share with a group of toddlers at story hour, but would be wonderful to share with a baby, singing and pointing out the animals. This version is available in boardbook format or with audio CD as well.

For the very young, animal identification and noises can be learned. The story has a narrative flow which can be reiterated by slightly older children. Because of the simple, repetition of the verses, the song is easily committed to memory and used as an early reader to work out  the words by sight.