Dimity Duck

I’m going to have my children’s book lover card revoked for this admission but here goes; I’d never read a Jane Yolen before. I’m not sure how I could have gotten to this age without having read one of her books. She’s only written over 250. So when I saw the adorable duck on the front of Dimity Duck I figured I would start with that one. I’m so glad I did. I’ll be picking up more of Ms. Yolen’s books.

Dimity Duck is an adorable story that makes me wish I had half of Jane Yolen’s talent with words. I was hooked from this line, “Dimity Duck waddles, she toddles out of bed. Niddy-Noddy goes her tail and Quack! goes her head.” I’m not sure what niddy-noddy means but I love the Quack goes her head part. And this is not the first word that Yolen invents. They are mixed throughout the book. She uses nonsense words to spice up simple rhymes. Words like frithy-frothy drips may not be an actual term, but they create a great impression. These are words that drip off the tongue. The rhyme scheme took a little getting used to when I first started the book but once I read the book aloud the rhythm made sense. This is a wonderful silly story that delighted me.

The illustrations by Sebastien Braun are cute, soft, cuddly, and bright. They are perfect illustrations for young children who will love the adorable duck and her cute frog friend. Braun paints Dimity with softness and adorable colors. This is a character that shows her emotions on its face. The design for the book was wonderful with lots of white spaces that give the reader time to enjoy the words and images. The onomatopoeia words are often in a different font and style as the rest of the words and almost jump off the page. The illustration work for this book is beautiful but it was the words in this book that made it amazingly cute.