The latest in Mo Willems’ classic “Pigeon” series of books, The Duckling Gets A Cookie, holds its own with its award winning predecessors.
Asking? Getting by asking? Pigeon is beside himself as he recounts all the things he’s asked for to no avail. Duckling manages to diffuse the volatile pigeon with a nice gesture (or clever scheme!) Like all of Willems’ books, this story conveys a tremendous amount of humor and emotion with an economy of words.
His exaggerated, cartoon-style drawings and lack of background details help focus attention on the emotional drama.
As in The Pigeon Finds a Hotdog, Duckling acts as a clever and calming conscience for the impulse-driven Pigeon. With a deft and subtle touch, Duckling helps Pigeon (and young readers) learn that asking politely for things is much more effective than aggressively demanding them. And as always, Pigeon helps readers of all ages remember how much fun it is to be kid.
(On a personal note, I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Willems in the writers’ green room at this year’s Book Expo America in New York and was delighted to find that he is as gracious as he is brilliant.)
Brian Rock is a blogger for JenningsWire, a blogging community created by Annie Jennings.
