Seven Little Ducklings
by Annette LeBlanc Cate
Candlewick Press, 2025. 40 pages.
Review written January 15, 2026, from a copy sent to me by the publisher.
Starred Review
2026 Mathical Book Prize Winner, PreK
When I first read this book, I didn’t fully appreciate it. But after discussing it with the Mathical Book Prize committee today and wholeheartedly selecting it as our winner, I want to post a review. (I’ll wait to post this until after the announcement is made.)
With the title and the opening, I thought it was, ho-hum, a counting book – something that’s already been done quite well in various other books. And sure enough, as the book opens, seven ducklings hatch while their mother is sleeping. And they step out into the wild.
This mother isn’t one to blithely go on her way while losing ducklings! She sets out looking for them.
And I almost didn’t notice the twist. At first, things are predictable. She finds the first duckling and they go on swimming together, then the second. But then we get this spread with four pictures:
From the jaws of a fox
she saves child number three.The fourth duck is stuck
in the roots of a tree.Three more small babies
are pulled from the ooze.She plucks one from a dive,
then counts them, confused.
Because Mother Duck now has more babies than she started with!
This is when an astute reader notices the pictures – that some of the ducks are colored differently than the originals, and some of the babies aren’t ducks at all.
And she keeps collecting more babies in humorous ways – and eventually decides that all thirteen belong safe in her nest under her wings.
So, yes, it’s a counting book. But the story is so much more, and kids will love figuring out which are the new babies in the family. This stands up to repeated readings, with new things to spot each time. Besides counting, the pre-math skills of comparing and sorting are included – and kids get to be smarter than Mama Duck.
Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Picture_Books/7_little_ducklings.html
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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.
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