"Duck on a Bike"

Duck on a Bike

Written and illustrated by: David Shannon

Published by: The Blue Sky Press in NY in 2002

ISBN: 0-439-05023-5

Genre: Picture Book

Reading Level: Grade 2

Activity Level: Kindergarten

Summary: This book is about a duck who gets the crazy idea that he can ride the bike that the boy who lives on the farm left his bike and decides to try to ride it. He does very well and passes all of his farm animal friends—the cow, the sheep, the dog, the cat, the horse, the chicken, the goat, the pigs, and the mouse. Each of them thinks the duck is crazy, but then a vast number of children come to visit the boy and they leave their bikes outside. Then, the other animals decide that if the duck can ride, why can they not. So, all the animals try and succeed at riding the bikes and have a wonderful time! The very last illustration in this book is of the duck looking very inquisitively at the farm tractor. I wonder what he could be thinking…

Response: This book is so cute! I think that the idea is very intelligent on the author’s part and that the book still maintains a message of perseverance for its readers. As the duck goes around to all of his friends to show them what he can do, many of them think he is crazy and go on about their business, but my favorite response to his riding is from the goat.—“Then Duck rode past Goat. ‘Hello, Goat,’ said Duck. ‘M-a-a-a,’ said Goat. But what he thought was, ‘I’d like to eat that bike!’” (p. 14)!

As always with David Shannon’s books, the illustrations are remarkable! He plays such careful attention to detail that there are even ants in the garbage can the goat is eating from. He takes care to smear his colors and use different shades to blend them to make his illustrations look more realistic. Each illustration, except the last one of the tractor, is a beautiful double-page spread of vibrantly-colored artwork.

Teaching Connections: I think this book could definitely be used in a kindergarten classroom. On each page, the students could listen while the teacher read the book and they could make the sound of the animal on that page to keep them very interactive with the story. Then, once the teacher got to pages 22-23, she could stop and ask them what they think will happen next, since there is no text on that page and just an illustration. Then, she would continue reading to the end of the story and show the students the final page the “the end” page where the duck is looking inquisitively at the farm’s tractor and ask what they think might happen next. She could also use this book to help students separate fact from fiction in that they should be able to understand that this is certainly a fiction story because farm animals cannot ride bikes.

What Students Learn: From this book and the activity, students are able to recall animal sounds, learn to predict text, and also learn to differentiate between fact and fiction. Students can also learn that they need to try new things even if they sound impossible.

Image Retrieved From: http://www.reddicklibrary.org/images/loripicks/duckbike.jpg