Mail Duck (A Mail Duck Special Delivery): A Book of Shapes and Surprises

by Erica Sirotich

Overview

In Mail Duck: A Book of Shapes and Surprises, author-illustrator Erica Sirotich invites little readers to come along on Mail Duck’s delivery route for a day full of lift-the-flap surprises in this fun interactive board book.

Mail Duck is delivering differently shaped packages to all his friends on his mail route. (Trudy likes triangles, and Harry likes hearts!) Lift the flaps to peek inside and guess what each friend received. Then head back to the post office for a big surprise: a thank-you celebration for Mail Duck planned by all his pals using the various packages they received throughout the story!

Sixteen flaps and a final double-gatefold spread give readers plenty of sweet and silly details to unpack in this charming board book.

“Sirotich’s art steals the show, with smiling faces and hidden shapes throughout in gentle greens, cotton-candy pinks, and highly saturated blues. . . . Mail Duck delivers delight, and toddlers will clamor for more.” —Kirkus Review

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781419739897
Publisher:	Abrams Appleseed
Publication date:	04/21/2020
Series:	A Mail Duck Special Delivery
Pages:	20
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	3 Months to 3 Years

About the Author

Erica Sirotich is an author-illustrator who regularly contributes illustrations and activities to kids’ magazines like Highlights, Ranger Rick Jr., and Boys’ Life, as well as Usborne activity books. She’s always loved receiving mail, and has been collecting postage stamps since she was a little girl. This gave her the inspiration to create Mail Duck! She lives in St. Petersburg, Florida, with her dogs, cats, and husband, Mike.

Editorial Reviews

**STARRED REVIEW**
"Sirotich’s art steals the show, with smiling faces and hidden shapes throughout in gentle greens, cotton-candy pinks, and highly saturated blues... Mail Duck delivers delight, and toddlers will clamor for more."

Kirkus Review

**STARRED REVIEW**
"Sirotich’s art steals the show, with smiling faces and hidden shapes throughout in gentle greens, cotton-candy pinks, and highly saturated blues... Mail Duck delivers delight, and toddlers will clamor for more."—Kirkus Review

From the Publisher

★ 2020-03-29
From a mail truck, a friendly, overalls-wearing white duck delivers variously shaped parcels—triangle, circle, square, oval, rectangle, and heart—to a corresponding critter who happens to be a lover of said geometric figure.

Each shape-and-animal pairing is allotted a double-page spread on which Mail Duck delivers the package to a grateful recipient. Pink owl Omar, for example, lives in a hollow tree trunk with an oval opening, and readers can peek behind flaps to view all the ovals in the owl’s house. Mail Duck hands over an oval-shaped package to the owl that readers can view the contents of behind a flap, which reveals it to be an oval-shaped balloon. This pattern is repeated with Scout the beaver, Cecil the snail, Trudy the mouse, Rosie the snake, and Harry the cat. The simple text declares the preferred shape of each animal, and Mail Duck ponders what could be inside each package via thought bubble. The final spread features gatefold flaps that open up the post-office exterior to reveal those friends with the contents of their packages, which happen to be party supplies in honor of Mail Duck. Sirotich’s art steals the show, with smiling faces and hidden shapes throughout in gentle greens, cotton-candy pinks, and highly saturated blues. While the 16 shaped flaps are easy for little fingers to lift, they won’t withstand robust play.

Mail Duck delivers delight, and toddlers will clamor for more. (Board book. 1-3)

Kirkus Reviews