Duck & Penguin Are Not Friends
Julia Woolf
Andersen Press

Betty and Maud are best friends; they love to play together. Each has a soft toy: Betty’s is Duck, Maud’s is Penguin. The girls are convinced their soft toys are equally friendly, sharing a love of their favourite human activities, swinging, sand play,

baking, painting and playing with ‘Itty-bitty babies’.

So involved are the girls in their own activities however, that they fail to notice what’s going on between Duck and Penguin.

Then the girls leave their toys alone while they go and fetch their baby bottles.

Left to their own devices Duck and Penguin indulge themselves in all the activities they’d previously tolerated with extreme reluctance and waywardness. This time however, because they’ve chosen so to do, swinging, sandcastle construction, baking and painting are fun for the two toys.

After all, who wants to have activities thrust upon them?

I love how the toys look even more ‘loved’ or shall we say, the worse for wear, by the end of the day; I love too the playful onomatopoeia, that relating to the toys contrasting nicely with the girls’ at times; and Julia Woolf’s energetic, wonderfully expressive illustrations will surely make little humans giggle, especially at the toys’ antics.