Quick Quack Quentin

by Kes Gray, Jim Field (Illustrator)

From the award-winning Kes Gray and the winner of the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, Jim Field, comes an hilarious tale about one duck's quest for a missing vowel!

Quentin was a duck with a very quick quack.
'QUCK!' said Quentin. 'What's wrong with me?'

Quentin's quack has lost its A. Do any of the other animals have one to spare? Not likely! APES don't want to be PES. SNAKES don't want to be SNKES. PANDAS don't want to be PNDAS or even PANDS. Will Quentin be stuck with a very quick QUCK?!

Brilliant for reading out loud and teaching children about vowels and animals.

Praise for Oi, Frog! also by Kes Gray and Jim Field: 'An absolute treat.' - Daily Mail

Kes is one of the Independent's TOP TEN children's authors and winner of the Red House Children's Book Award. Jim's first picture book Cats Ahoy! won the Roald Dahl Funny Prize in 2011.

Genres: Picture Books, Animals, Childrens, Humor, Adventure

32 pages, Hardcover

Published February 11, 2016

About the author

Kes Gray is a bestselling, multi award-winning author of more than 70 books for children. He eats Ideaflakes for breakfast, spreads silliness on his toast and lives in a place called Different. Kes was the second bestselling picture book author in 2018.

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quentin is dismayed when his doctor advises that he has a quick 'quck', a quack that lost its 'A'. So, Quentin is off to find an A from somewhere, so that he can resume being an everyday waterfowl. He comes across a few animals who are willing to temporarily lend vowels from their names, though QUECK, QUOCK, and QUICK are not sounds that Quentin likes to hear come from his bill. After stumbling into the Zoo (and no, QUOOCK does not work for him either), Quentin finds a few more animals to help, but none are able to provide him what he needs. That is, until he finds a unique and wonderful animal. Neo loved the swapping of vowels in this piece (especially as he is learning letter sounds and blending in school), able to show me what the different sounds make. He hoped that we could find more stories like this, allowing him to jump in an help with some of the reading.

[Nicola · Rating 4 out of 5]

Miss 3 is really enjoying this book and even copies some of the sounds. It took me the first reading to work out my QUCK noise but I was fine on the second read through. It's fun as a picture book but from an educational / SLT point of view it's useful because it has kids focussing not only on identifying vowels (especially A) but also thinking about their phonetics. As duck attempts to fix his QUCK by borrowing different vowels he makes QUECK, QUICK, QUOCK, and QUUCK! Thankfully a helpful Aardvark is able to help him fix his QUACK.

I also like the signposts (i.e. 1 waddle to duck pond, 1 waddle to doctor); I can see how these would be useful in a class exercise where they use maths to add up his journey or draw maps of his adventure.

Miss 3 and I like to explore different books and authors at the library, sometimes around particular topics or themes. We try to get different ones out every week or so; it's fun for both of us to have the variety and to look at a mix of new & favourite authors.

[Mairéad · Rating 4 out of 5]

This humorous story about Quentin the ducks search for the missing 'a' in his 'quack' will have children aged 5+ laughing aloud as various animals offer up their own vowels to help Quentin out! A perfect way to explore the impact of vowels on words and deepen senior infants or first class pupils phonemic awareness.

[Hannah Jackson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun book that could be used for applying the qu phoneme in phonics

[Luke Barlow · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been meaning to write this review for some time.

I am not exaggerating when I say this is the greatest children’s illustration book ever written, at least according to my household!

For both of my young children (now aged 7 and 4) this has been, by far, their favourite book as they have grown up.

When they were very little, it was mostly about enjoying the brilliant pictures and laughing at their Dad doing animal sounds.

Then when they could do animal sounds, they’d have endless fun producing them for all the different animals. Especially shouting ‘Quck!’ at the top of their voices.

As they grew older, this book was where they started to learn their letters. In fact, the first word that either of them could ever read was ‘Doctor’!

Now, they can read it to me.

We’ve honestly read it over 200 times and even as a full grown adult, I still enjoy it.

Congratulations on a brilliant piece of work.

[Annabel Josephine · Rating 4 out of 5]

We read this book in our lecture and I very much enjoyed it as It showed how phonics can be taught through a story. It also showed how words are formed from different sounds. In terms of enjoyment, I thought that it was a very clever and amusing book.

[Liam Stamp · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book can be applied to KS1 students and focuses on phonological awareness within words. The Quentin is the main character within the book and is missing his ‘A’ in ‘Quack’. Great lesson for children to decode words and ensure that the whole word is complete

[Holly Davies · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book and it is useful in explaining how deletion works in words. May be tricky to read as there are a lot of sounds so I would have to practice reading it before reading in front of a class

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute! Can you guess which animal gave up one of their A's for Quentin?

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as funny as Oi Frog, but a fun daft book that will make you grin.

[Shayna R. · Rating 3 out of 5]

A cute way to get kids thinking about words and prediction. This is a fun little story about a duck and how he sounds, and a great way to get silly. Another winner from Kes Gray.

[Jenna Mills · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clever and great for investigating phonics... Though annoying that it is all in uppercase.

[Adele · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great for phonics. Short vowel sounds.

[Holly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really good. Helpful for phonics.

[Danielle]

Good for phonics teaching. Great participation book.

[Louise Fluck]

Good for phonics and sounds

[Olivia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great for teaching Phonics in Lower years

[Megan McDermott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good to use for phonics!

[Megan Davidson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Duck that loses it's 'A' and goes to different places looking for it so he can have his quack back. Great for phonics and can be used to make maps (maybe geography??)

[Alice Mundy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fun book which can be used to reinforce phonics, especially the short vowel sounds (a, e, i, o and u).

[Rachel Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really good book for year 1/2 based on phonics. talks about losing his “A sound” in quck.

[Hannah Tompkins]

Possibility for reading challenge 3

[Megan Bishop · Rating 4 out of 5]

KS1- good book for phonemic awareness

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lots of different animals and good illustrations. Duck tried lots of different phonemes. Involves speech. Different font styles.

[Jess Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really useful for phonics looking at different letters and what sounds they make if you elicit and add to different words

[Teigan]

Good for reception- phonemic awareness

[Emily Stevens · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is helpful with phonics and phonemic awareness!

[Mariam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Phonic related - a little duck has lost his a. The little duck uses different letters to make a similar sound but not exact. He needs an a.

[Zoe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phonics ‘a’ sound

[Grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phonics