Duck for President!

Cronin, D. (2004). Duck for president. New York: Scholastic. 

Duck for President is the comic tale of what happens when the duck at Farmer Brown’s farm gets bored with his everyday life. Mowing the yard, taking out the trash and grinding up the coffee beans are just no fun for Duck anymore! Duck is tired of doing these chores on the farm and he takes matters into his own hands and decides to have an election on the farm. Duck wants to replace Farmer Brown as the leader! After campaigning around the farm for a kinder, gentler farm, Duck wins the election and replaces Farmer Brown as the leader of the farm. After a while, Duck realizes what hard work it is to run the farm, and decides to run for governor. Duck and his staff campaign hard, giving speeches and going to town meetings. After all the votes have been counted,  Duck wins the election once again! After each day as governor, Duck starts to realize that it is hard work running a state as well! Duck makes a decision that being governor is simply not good enough and he begins to campaign for president! Duck hits the campaign trail, riding in parades, kissing babies, and even making appearances on late night television! After the election results are tallied, Duck wins in the presidency! After tackling the presidency for a bit, Duck realizes that running a country is very hard work! Duck decides that once again he needs a change! 

To find out what Duck gets into next, read Duck for President!

This comical story comes from author Doreen Cronin, who also wrote the popular book Click, Click, Moo: Cows that Type, as well as the book Diary of a Worm. That is the reason I was attracted to this book in the first place! I love Click, Clack, Moo and will read it several times a year with my students; there are so many strategies and skills you can use that book for and I was hopeful for the same in this book! And Cronin delivers once again with another hilarious tale of the animals at Farmer Brown’s farm.  In this fantasy picture book, the animals on the farm display an extreme amount of personification: they are equals to the people in the book. They are participating in elections, giving speeches and running for president! The illustrations definitely help with portraying the sense that the animals are like people.  The illustrations, which have been beautifully done with watercolor, are soft and warm on the farm, conveying a sense of home and comfort.  As the Duck wins elections and moves on, the colors become more vibrant and the lines in the drawings become more defined, which makes it appear more serious! Also, the illustrator, Betsy Lewin, was able to convey a lot of humor and even some of the plot through the illustrations. Like on the page where it is discussing Duck’s campaign for the presidency, they show him on late night television. Adults reading the story will realize from the picture that Letterman is in the background! Also, on the very last page, Duck is working on a computer and there is a typewriter in the trashcan next to him. If one has read, Click, Clack, Moo, they would understand the humor in this because at the end of the story the cows had given Duck the typewriter! Farmer Brown’s shock and horror as he gets out-voted as the leader of the farm is also shown in his expressions in the illustrations! 

This would be an excellent trade book for social studies, especially when learning about government leaders and the campaign/election process. It builds from leader of the farm, to the governor, to the president so it would be excellent to show leaders at state and national level in a fun and humorous way. Also when teaching students about elections and how candidates campaign, there are examples of the Duck going to town meetings, giving speeches and how the votes are counted to determine a winner! These sometimes dry and boring topics are given new life through this comical story! Students would love reading about this ambitious Duck but while they read, they would also be learning about our government in the process.  This would be an excellent book that would work for children grades K-5^th grade.  Even though it is a picture book, the humor and content would appeal to older readers. 

Some BIG questions you could discuss with the students while reading would be: How do you think Duck thought being President would really be like? Why do you think Duck kept running for a different office? Why do you believe that Duck was so unhappy on the farm? Do you think Duck would have done anything differently? What might that be? What do you think Duck enjoyed the most as he ran for office? Why do you think that? Would you ever want to run for President and why?