Grumpy Duck

Duck is sulking and stomping around the farmyard with highly expressive orange feet. Her grumpiness is justified in one respect—the pond has dried up, so there’s no paddling—but otherwise it’s self-indulgent. She claims she has no one to play with, even though her friends are the very definition of solicitous (Goat, who is munching on the laundry hung out to dry, even offers to share a shirt snack). Duck just gets grumpier, peering down her pointy beak with scorn and disdain as a gray cloud that’s been forming over her head grows bigger and bigger, turning “blue and purple and yellow until it was BLACK!” and putting everyone in a foul mood (Tortoise decides “to stay in his shell forever and ever”). Horácˇek, usually a solo act, makes a winning team with Dunbar (Pat-a-Cake Baby), her brisk, direct prose providing sufficient personality and emotional momentum to match his gorgeously textured animal portraits: a radiantly pink pig wallows in brocadelike crimson mud; a rooster is a riot of copper and emerald feathers. A glorious, giddy group rain dance—and homage to “Singin’ in the Rain”—closes the book, showing that no cloud or mood can stay dark forever. Ages 3–7. [em](Mar.) [/em]