School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 1-Quackers is a cat convinced that he is a duck because he lives at a pond where everyone he knows is clearly a duck. Still, he often feels out of place because he meows instead of quacking, doesn't care for the dinner options (particularly duckweed), and especially hates getting wet. When Quackers unexpectedly meets "a strange duck" named Mittens, he is overjoyed to befriend another creature who understands him, shares a common desire to chase mice, and drinks milk instead of (yucky) duckweed. When Mittens sets him straight about his identity, Quackers feels right at home with the other felines, until he misses his winged friends. Ultimately, he discovers that he is fully able to maintain a dual identity as both cat and duck, which makes him happiest of all. Wong's delightful blend of both digital and watercolor illustrations, featuring the sweet orange tabby who radically sticks out in the vast midst of identical white ducks, perfectly captures the sweet silliness of this story. The simplicity of the illustrations, encompassing little more than black dots for eyes, never detracts from the expressiveness of the main character. Children will appreciate Quackers's quirky dilemma, and the underlying message that friends do not have to be all the same will surely not be lost on young listeners. VERDICT A humorous picture book story about the value of friendship despite differences.-Etta Anton, Yeshiva of Central Queens, NY © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Quackers "knows he is a duck because he lives at the duck pond with all the other ducks." Circumstantial evidence aside, Quackers looks (and sounds) an awful lot like an orange tabby cat. Working in watercolor and digital media, newcomer Wong brings deadpan humor to both her narration and illustrations, which have the feel of cut-paper collages. Wong frames the dialogue and narration in lightly textured panels and speech balloons in a style reminiscent of Peter Brown's Children Make Terrible Pets; one page features neatly labeled rows of duck "dinner options" like slugs, snails, seeds, worms, algae, and duckweed ("Not duckweed again!" protests Quackers below). A chance encounter with a cat named Mittens leads Quackers to an existential reassessment, but Wong doesn't force him to choose: "Quackers is a duck. And Quackers is a cat. But, most of all, he's just Quackers, and that makes him completely happy." While the message about embracing one's individuality is clear, Wong never gets heavy-handed. The ducks' wholesale acceptance of Quackers, an ostensible predator, is one of the book's most charming aspects. Ages 3-7. Agent: Alexandra Penfold, Upstart Crow Literary. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Quackers is a duck. He lives at the duck pond, he eats duckweed for lunch, and everyone he knows is a duck. So even though he feels like he doesn't fit in sometimes, that's definitely what he is . . . right? Of course, readers will see the problem right away: the soft, digitized watercolors indeed depict a peaceful scene at the duck pond, but Quackers, sitting on a lily-pad surrounded by white ducks, is unmistakably an orange cat. He's shown humorously doing duck activities until he meets another strange duck: a cat named Mittens, who teaches Quackers how to chase mice (More fun than swimming!); drink milk (Much tastier than duckweed!); and clean himself (This isn't quite as exciting). But despite Quackers' joy at figuring out what he is, he's starting to miss the duck pond, too. This picture-book debut about a cat with a paw in two worlds is at times charming, at times laugh-out-loud funny, and its ugly-duckling case of mistaken identity will endear it to many.--Reagan, Maggie Copyright 2016 Booklist
