The team behind Katy Duck Meets the Baby-Sitter tackles a case of costume envy with humor and insight when the feathered heroine heads out to trick-or-treat with friends.
"Tra-la-la. Quack! Quack!" says Katy Duck as her parents peer through the doorway. "I can get ready for Halloween all by myself." In her costume box, she finds all the ingredients she needs to transform herself into a dancing unicorn. "No one will have a costume like this," she says. Henry Cole portrays Katy's celebratory mood as she gallops and twirls in her purple wings and ballet slippers, blue tutu and multicolored horn, attached by an elastic band. Her canine friend Ralph arrives in a spacesuit, and the two set out to collect candy. But wait: "There was Alice Duck. Alice wore the most wonderful costume Katy had ever seen." In her mermaid costume with matching crown and slippers, "Alice shimmered. Alice glimmered." Poor Katy Duck: "Tra-la-la. Boohoo!" says she. "Suddenly she wanted a costume that shimmered and glimmered, too." A compliment from Alice Duck is all it takes for Katy Duck to improve her mood: "Together, they shimmered and glimmered. Together, they galloped and twirled."
Capucilli and Cole's gentle lesson shows that a little kindness goes a long way toward reducing jealousy and building camaraderie. Katy Duck's industriousness and creativity contribute to a costume that Alice Duck aspires to assemble, another subtle message about being true to oneself. Tra-la-la. Here's to more beginning readers starring the inimitable Katy Duck. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness