Duck & Company Christmas
Reviews and Recommendations
Kirkus Reviews – September 2011
Duck and Rat celebrate Christmas at their bookstore with an assortment of animal friends in this early reader that will also win over younger children as a read-aloud.
In seven short chapters, Duck and Rat decorate the store with cut-paper snowflakes, open a gift-wrapping station and watch as their gingerbread house is nibbled down to nothing. As a major snowstorm moves in on Christmas Eve, all the animal friends take shelter at the bookstore, spending Christmas Eve together with a potluck dinner and a slumber party that finds the animals spread out on the floor, tables and shelves. In the morning, there are Christmas stockings for all and a frosty coating on the display window, with a new gingerbread house and a message from Santa. The droll humor and quietly amusing holiday preparations have the flavor of the Frog and Toad stories, with the same comforting sense of a kind and reassuring world. Understated illustrations in gouache and ink are filled with tiny, humorous details and clever costumes for the animal characters, such as tiny jackets and pointed caps for a flock of particularly captivating chicks.
As sweet and clever as a gingerbread house (with a frosting of humor) and as satisfying as a cup of hot chocolate. (Picture book /early reader. 4-8)
School Library Journal – October 2011
Gr 1-3–Seven short chapters are chock-full of entertaining holiday antics at the Duck & Company Bookstore. Clever Duck offers free cocoa to customers willing to cut out paper snowflakes and quickly gets the store decorated. On Christmas Eve, a snowstorm traps the customers inside, but there are plenty of treats, so they make a party of the situation. What a great place to be trapped–no shortage of books to read! Santa even pays a visit in the middle of the night. Lively, colorful gouache and ink illustrations share the pages with an inviting text on a white background. Plenty of action and expressive, engaging characters make this selection charming and laugh-out-loud funny. –Linda Israelson, Los Angeles Public Library
Midwest Review of Books, December 2011
"All is cozy at the Duck & Company Bookstore as holiday preparations are made... . In this charming illustrated Christmas story, the animals discover once again that the essence of Christmas is something found inside, in tender togetherness with others. Recommended for children age 4 and up."
Scripps Howard News Service December 7, 2011
"--Author/illustrator Kathy Caple offers a holiday treat to readers just ready for chapter books in "Duck & Company Christmas" (Holiday House, $15.95, ages 5-8). In seven action-filled chapters, Caple tells what happens when Duck, Rat, Badger and others are snowed in at their bookstore. Caple's entertaining story is matched by her bright-colored illustrations, which bring further humor and emotion to the tale. Fans of Arnold Lobel's "Frog and Toad" books will love meeting this new set of friends."
Horn Book Guide April 2012
The Duck & Company bookstore is preparing for Christmas. In seven brief chapters, quirky characters stop by, each adding to the comical mishaps. When a snowstorm strands everyone in the store overnight, the gang turns the event into the makings of a memorable Christmas. Festive ink and gouache illustrations add to the merriment. CHS