Young Hippo: Christmas Quackers Sylvia Green (Writer) Annabel Spenceley (Illustrator) List Price: £3.50 Our Price: £2.80 Paperback - 143 pages (15 October, 1999) Scholastic Children's Books; ISBN: 0439011779 Quackers the duckling hatches from an egg Miss Hancock brings to school - and Kate falls in love with him. She can't bear the thought of him having to go back to the Wildfowl Rescue Centre - so she manages to persuade her parents to let her keep him. That's where the fun begins, because if Kate couldn't bear to be parted from Quackers, he most certainly isn't going to let her leave him - even to go to school. And the fun really begins when Kate auditions for the school panto... This gentle, warm-hearted chapterbook had me laughing out loud - as much because of Annabel Spenceley's line drawings as Sylvia Green's text. It's the details that make this book work so well - the way Quackers's voice changes, for instance - and because of them, it doesn't need huge adventures to keep the reader's attention. Truly enchanting. Return to index