Thump, Quack, Moo: A Whacky Adventure

Thump, Quack, Moo:  A Whacky Adventure

Text by Doreen Cronin, Illustrations by Betsy Lewin

Bibliography

Text by Doreen Cronin, Illustrations by Betsy Lewin. Thump, Quack, Moo: A Whacky Adventure. New York: Antheneum Books for Young Readers, 2008.  ISBN 9781416916307

Plot Summary

The time for the annual Corm Maze Festival is approaching and Farmer Brown is very excited to be making a “Statue of Liberty” corn maze, but he needs help.  The chickens don’t want to help but agree when Farmer Brown lets them use his hammer to build a fence around the field, the cows don’t want to help either, but get excited when they are allowed to use Farmer Brown’s paintbrushes to paint the barn.  Duck, who never wants to help, agrees only when Farmer Brown threatens to take away his favorite organic duck feed, so Duck starts to build the ticket booth for the hot-air balloon ride.  The mice are taking a correspondence course in meteorology and are much too busy to help.

Everyone works and works to prepare for the festival and each day, Farmer Brown plans and measures and cuts to make the maze perfect.  But every night, Duck plans and measures and cuts as well.  The day of the festival arrives and Farmer Brown finds that the animals have not done a very good job preparing, but he is excited anyway and pays his $5 for a hot-air balloon ride to see his maze from on high.  Duck pays his $5 and joins him.  When they are high enough to see the maze, Farmer Brown sees that Duck has gotten the best of him by changing the regular Statue of Liberty maze into a Duck Statue of Liberty. 

Critical Analysis

Thump, Quack, Moo is pure fun.  Cronin’s text, filled with anthropomorphized animals which can use hammers and paint brushes and study meteorology is simple yet amusing, and very suitable for young readers.  Children will enjoy the reluctance of the animals to help and the way Farmer Brown “tricks” them into helping anyway.  Farmer Brown’s protagonist and his antagonist Duck have an amusing relationship with Farmer Brown thinking he has the upper hand while being tricked himself by Duck the entire time.  The denouement where Farmer Brown finally sees that all of his hard work had been appropriated by Duck is both hilarious and, with the fold up page of the Statue of Liberty Duck, very satisfying.  Farmer Brown thinks he is using the animals, but, in the end, he sees that he’s the one who’s been used.

Betsy Lewin’s illustrations are truly the star of the show here.  The story is simple and funny, and the illustrations match up with that story perfectly.  With bright colors and a purposefully primitive and cartoonish drawing style, Lewin perfectly captures the whimsical nature of the story. The parallel drawings of Farmer Brown and Duck each doing their sketches, measuring and cutting are quite funny with Farmer Brown working in the day time and Duck working at night.  The drawing of Duck sitting at a table with his night vision goggle on top of his head and his tools laid out before him is hilarious and the night-vision perspective of Duck’s activities is also very funny and suggests the sneakiness of Duck.  Children will love the bold characters embodied in both text and illustration, and they will also love the subterfuge of Duck and the other animals, which all get the best of Farmer Brown.  The drawing of the Duck Statue of Liberty, hidden from the reader until the page is turned up made my niece laugh out loud when she saw it.  

Review Excerpts

“Once again, Doreen Cronin and Betsy Lewin bring us a hilarious farmyard tale that has a delicious ending. We almost feel sorry for Farmer Brown. Clearly is doesn’t pay to cross a group of creative farm animals.”   - TTLG Through The Looking Glass Children’s Book Reviews 

“It's another inter species battle of wits—and read-aloud winner—from a celebrated duo.”  Editorial Review – Publisher’s Weekly 

Connections

Discuss with students the value of teamwork and cooperation and how sometimes it doesn’t work, and why.

Discuss the meaning of the mice and their weather predictions that mirror the things happening in the story.

Discuss why Duck does what he does.  Is he angry, or just getting the upper hand?

Discuss the way that Farmer Brown “tricks” the animals into helping and how they get back at him.