A mother duck waddles onto a bridge followed by her five ducklings. A sudden gust blows the last little duck into the river below. Its mother quacks, “What should I do? Where should I go, with four on the bridge and one below?” Each of the remaining ducklings falls into the river in turn, with Mother Duck repeating her refrain, re-stating the numbers of little ducks on the bridge and in the water each time. Eventually only she is left on the bridge until, encouraged by her brood, she joins them in the river. Subtraction, sorting, and spatial concepts are smoothly incorporated into a funny and appealing read-aloud for preschool or kindergarten. (Ages 3–6)

A delightful counting tale about a family of ducks from internationally bestselling picture book author Mem Fox and illustrator Judy Horacek.

Count along with Mother Duck as her ducklings try to waddle across the bridge. When a sudden gust of wind sweeps one of Mother Duck's ducklings into the river, she doesn't know what to do. With four ducklings on the bridge and one below, Mother Duck is torn as to which way to go. Suddenly, a second duck falls and Mother Duck grows more panicked. Should she stay on the bridge or fly down to her ducklings in the river? As she paces and frantically quacks, the remaining ducklings playfully plop one by one into the river until all of the siblings are happily floating along. Now that all five ducklings are safely in the water, Mother Duck flies down to join in the fun, relieved to have all her ducklings together again. Mem introduces young readers to the basic math principles of addition and subtraction.