10 Little Rubber Ducks

by Eric Carle

Get swept away with 10 little rubber ducks! (Book with sound chip) Chuckedy-chuckedy-chuck goes the rubber duck machine. Out pop little yellow rubber ducks one after the other...A brand-new batch of rubber ducks is loaded on to a ship and sent off to be delivered to children everywhere. But when a storm strikes, 10 little ducks are tossed into the sea and swept away in 10 different directions - with some wonderfully unexpected adventures along the way. Come ride the waves as legendary children's book author and illustrator, Eric Carle, explores numbers, directions, opposites, geography, animals and more in an extraordinary interactive picture book, beautifully illustrated with his unique collage-style art. And for a final surprise, the last page contains a duck with a squeaking sound chip for a special treat at the end of the story!

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens, Counting, Animals, Storytime, Fiction, Mathematics

34 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Eric Carle was an American author, designer and illustrator of children's books. His picture book The Very Hungry Caterpillar, first published in 1969, has been translated into more than 66 languages and sold more than 50 million copies. Carle's career as an illustrator and children's book author accelerated after he collaborated on Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?. Carle illustrated more than 70 books, most of which he also wrote, and more than 145 million copies of his books have been sold around the world.
In 2003, the American Library Association awarded Carle the biennial Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal (now called the Children's Literature Legacy Award), a prize for writers or illustrators of children's books published in the U.S. who have made lasting contributions to the field. Carle was also a U.S. nominee for the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2010.

Reviews

[Jasmine from How Useful It Is · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read for my daughter. Super cute story!

[Canette Arille · Rating 4 out of 5]

And this is another book by the talented Mr. Eric Carle. I like this book. Are nice illustrations. The book starts with yellow ducks coming out of the machine, and being painted. Packed ten to a box, they go by car to a ship, that takes them to faraway countries. Suddenly there is a storm, waves and wind. One wave takes one box of ducks into the water. The box opens, and the ducks fall out. The captain notices that one box has fallen out. When the storm ends, the ducks stay in the water, where only the sky and the sea. The ducks drift in different directions, meeting various sea animals and birds. The next morning, ten little rubber ducks meet mother duck and her ducklings. When darkness fell, everyone headed towards her nest.

A very nice book for children. Bright colors and nicely drawn illustrations. I am delighted with this book. A fairy tale for small and older children. The fairy tale conveys good and positive messages. Little children will be delighted with it. However, adults and teenagers may also enjoy this book. Small, yellow ducks fit perfectly into the background, making everything more colorful and expressive. I recommend

[Mandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cute book with great illustrations for kids! I love ducks so I'm a sucker for a book with them in it :)

[booklady · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clever, colorful and cutesy, but my 18-month-old grandson was not impressed, and he is not only very used to being read to, he's also completely ducky-for-ducks right now. He did bring it back to me once, but we never made it all the way through either time; second time through I did my abbreviated read, but still no bueno. (I had read it before hand and left it for him to discover standing upright in front of Grandma's cache of children's books.)

We'll keep trying and see what happens. This little man knows what he likes and is a very good judge of quality books.

[Candace · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 10 Little Rubber Ducks, we see the rubber ducks being manufactured, boxed up and delivered to a cargo ship. Once out to sea, a storm whips up and a box of rubber ducks falls overboard, opens up and the ducks fall out and into the water. A rubber duck floats north. Another floats south. Still another floats west. Yet another floats east. Until we have the tenth rubber duck floating all by itself. A mother duck and her baby ducks paddle by and the tenth rubber duck floats with them. When the ducks all settle in for the night, all the ducks say "Quack!" and the rubber duck says, "Squeak!"

I love counting books and this one is a special treat. We not only learn to count, but we also learn geography, biology and directional words. I liked how Eric Carle created a sense of adventure as the rubber ducks traveled around the globe. The tenth rubber duck is the safest because he finds a home with the ducks. The collage illustrations bring the story to life. Who knew rubber ducks could have such an adventurous time. This book is a great read for pre-kindergarten to kindergarten. Reading skills -- kindergarten to first grade.

[Katelyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

1. Counting

2. 10 rubber ducks are made and shipped out to be sold, but their box fell off of the cargo ship. One by one they float to new destinations.

3. A - The illustrations are sweet. Eric Carle’s style is somewhat recognizable to children, which can be comforting. The story line is decent, I think this is better for younger children who are just starting to learn their numbers.

B- The strengths were based on number representation, and the repetition of certain lines. This can be positive and fun for young readers who begin to predict the story. I think this is appropriate for young children, pre-school age is probably the highest group I would present this to. The story line is lacking, kindergarten and up may not be engaged or even entertained.

C- The ducks all separated, but their new locations were not very detailed. Older children need more details, whereas younger children can benefit from new words like North or South. “The 4th duck drifts South. A flamingo stared at it” Kindergartners need more information then this.

4. Pre-school teachers can definitely tie this into a numbers lesson. It can also connect with talking about safety and safe places. The 10th duck drifts over to a Mama duck, and is clearly the safest one. Teachers could talk about wandering or “drifting” away, which leads to unfamiliar places.

[Carrie Adair · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this counting book, ten little rubber ducks fall out of their box into the ocean. Each travels and sees other animals. The last rubber duck is adopted by a mother duck. The duck squeaks with a push of a button.

It's a sweet little book illustrated by collage. I like the plot and the illustrations.

[Therese Thompson · Rating 2 out of 5]

What fresh hell is this? Parker lost interest almost immediately and my immediate impression was, “Are the rubber duckies being made in third world sweatshops for importation??!” The scattering of the duckies to their singular fates was also not my favorite kid’s lesson, albeit a very existential one.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cute book with BEAUTIFUL illustrations!! Recommended by my neighbor who is an art teacher and did an art project with his students .

[Ethan Stone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read along with @lilynordyke. I thought it was funny when the seal barked at one of the ducks. Unfortunately the batteries were dead in our squeaker, but otherwise well written and very insightful. Illustrations were wonderful too.

[🌶 peppersocks 🧦 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reflections and lessons learned:
Oh no! Protect the ducks! What a great narration with wonderful repetition of the lines imagined within the illustrations. Life lessons that the storm always calms down, but is necessary to have as part of the adventure... to hear the true story inspiration at the end too was fab!

[Khari · Rating 1 out of 5]

I do not know what it is about Eric Carle, I do not like his books. I haven't found one I liked yet, other than the Grouchy Ladybug which was bearable. Is it just that I'm prejudiced because the art is so distinctive as soon as I see a new one I get flashbacks of Brown Bear? Am I just traumatized from rereading that book so many times out loud to my niece? I don't know, but I didn't like this one at all.

I should too. It's a tragicomic adventure. Rubber duckies fall off their ship and go on adventures around the world....this book is thirty pages long with maybe 50 words to each page, I shouldn't be bored and anxious for it to be over already. But it felt interminable. I wasn't interested at all. I was bored. I didn't like it.

Story: Interminable
Art: Terrible
Price: $7.99

[Rod Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

Based on a news article about thousands of rubber ducks that went adrift after falling from a cargo ship, Eric Carle imagines ten of the toys briefly encountering real marine animals. And that's it.

A fine example of Carle's art, but the story is a big nothing.

[Lillian Slater · Rating 5 out of 5]

So cute!

[Beverlee Jobrack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sweet introduction to directions!

[Asher H.K. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like counting ducks

[Laura Gibbs · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is really kind of cool simply because it is based on a true story, taken from a 1992 newspaper. The basic story line is that 10 little rubber ducks are painted, put into cargo boxes and loaded onto a cargo ship, and are floating in the ocean on the ship until a storm hits. Once the storm hits, they are knocked into the sea and the ocean waves begin to scatter them all over the place. This book teaches counting; as it counts each duck, it tells of its encounter. For example: the first duck goes west and a dolphin jumps over it. The second duck drifts east and a seal barks at it. The last duck finds a mother duck and her ducklings, and is basically adopted by them. As with all Eric Carle books, the pictures are really bright and would definitely attract the attention of a child of any age. On the very last page there is a part where kids can push and it makes a squeaking sound, like rubber ducks do, so kids gain the ability to match that sound to rubber ducks as well.
I love the pictures in this book, I love the story line and I love that it’s based off a true story. I don’t think there are any Eric Carle books that I have read that I didn’t like. I think it’s very neat that he included the sound at the end of the book as well. This could be used thematically in a classroom for counting or when talking about various animals.

[Dolly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has a simple story line, inspired by a true story of a shipment of toy rubber animals falling overboard and floating far and wide. The illustrations are great, as we've come to expect from Mr. Carle. And the story is sweet, with a bit of a sing song quality to it with the repetition of the words. Our girls especially liked the ending and the little sound effect button on the back cover.

[Chris Young · Rating 2 out of 5]

A shipment of rubber ducks falls into the middle of the ocean. The ten ducks drift their separate ways and encounter various animals found in and around oceans around the world. This might have been charming had I not just read Tracking Trash, which describes the true story of the lost shipment of tub toys that Carle's book is based on. I kept picturing the various animals swallowing the toy ducks and dying from impaction. Maybe kids will find the story to be cute, but I wasn't impressed.

[Gail Westover · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wasn't crazy about this one and neither were my grandkids. The illustrations were bright and colorful, but there were a lot that were just plain boring. Some of the animals were huge and scary, especially the octopus. A few of my kids were afraid they were going to eat the ducks. Some of the text was strange. He repeated the last 4 or 5 words at the end of the sentence. Why?

Anyway, not my favorite Eric Carle book.

[Karen Dransfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story was inspired by a real event where there was a storm and 28,800 bath toys were lost at sea when a container load fell overboard and all the people who have been looking for them since this happened. Oceanographers have been following their paths to study currents etc. Beautiful artwork by Eric Carle.

[meryem. ♡]

read it to my little brother and he loved it!

[Bookishrealm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay the only thing I'm going to say is that as a 24 year old adult I was completed amused by this book. I mean it made sounds.

[Helen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this millions of times with my daughter when she was a baby. Despite her best efforts, she was not able to chew and destroy the very thick pages which are all made of wipeable hardboard. On the final page, there is a delightful, yellow rubber ducky embedded on the inner cover which squeaks when pressed. My daughter used to get very excited as the story drew to an end, in anticipation of that little duck. A charming story, with beautiful illustrations. I adore this book.

She is much older now, and when I showed it to her she had no recollection of it. When I pick it up and read it, I am flooded with breathtaking, powerful, yearning memories of my sweet smelling, chubby, dribbly, warm, adorable baby who insisted on being held and cuddled by me 24 hours a day until she was around 12 months old and found her feet, then could bear to be up to 10 steps away from me, until she was about 6. I deeply miss and grieve for that baby I waited years for, but I am more than compensated by the funny, sweet, kind, easy going, chatty, sunny little girl she has grown into. I miss those blissful, magical, all encompassing times when it was a joy, a privilege and so hugely fulfilling to while away many a sunny morning, rainy afternoon or long night reading aloud with a little body moulded so easily, naturally and effortlessly into mine. In waiting rooms, in the garden, on long journeys, at all times of the day, I adored the endless, repetitive reading to my entranced, delightful and book obsessed baby, who tried with all her might to suck and rip every book she could get her eager hands on. This is one of the many books that can take my breath away and transport me back to those precious times.

[Aidan · Rating 3 out of 5]

"10 Little Rubber Ducks" is a math concept picture book designed to reinforce the concept of counting from one to ten. The book begins by illustrating the process of manufacturing ten rubber ducks and follows their journey as they are shipped to a different country. During the shipping, the box that contains the ducks is accidentally dumped into the sea, henceforth the rubber ducks end up drifting away and having their own adventures. In the beginning of the picturebook there is a page featuring the ducks' outlines with corresponding numbers. This style reminded me of early evangelical children's literature, where it was customary to introduce the alphabet or cursive script before getting into the lesson or story. Fortunately, any resemblance to evangelical literature ends there. Unlike older texts that often aimed to teach children how to be adult-like, this picturebook allows children to preserve their childhood, allowing creativity and exploration. Overall, in my opinion I would not consider this to be a picturebook fully focused on math and rather focused on telling a story that has some mathematical logic within.

[Jason Choi]

10 Little Rubber Ducks is one of the two books by Eric Carle that I chose to read and write about. The book is about ten rubber ducks that were made in a factory and shipped out by sea. These ducks, while being shipped over boat faced a storm and were tossed overboard by the harsh waves leading them to all drift away. Each of these ducks are shown drifting away and each of these ducks meet a different animal and or thing. This book explores the central theme of numbers and counting through a similar way as the other books that I chose to read, using the numbers one through ten, and choosing to count up starting from one all the way up to the number ten. This allows for the kid reading to be able to learn the orders of the numbers and how to count in order from one to ten. A secondary reading that I related to this book was the one on reading into the meaning behind pictures in a picture book. I noticed in this book that the rubber ducks were not in the center of the book leading me to believe that the author wanted the readers to focus on the different animals and things that these rubber ducks saw rather than the rubber ducks themselves.

[Jess Weaver · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about how rubber ducks get sent off to homes. It shows the factory and the people that help make them and how they get all across the world. Captain Bobbie was taking them to all the countries. But there was a big storm that hit and 10 rubber ducks fell overboard and Captain Bobbie could not save them. Each duck floated somewhere completely different. The first duck went with a dolphin and one event when with a Polar bear. All 9 of the ducks found somewhere to go, but the 10th duck just stayed floating. Until a mother duck and her 9 other ducklings found the rubber duck and took the rubber duck with them to complete their 10 ducks. I really enjoyed this book, it was so cute. I wanted to read this book because it was written by Eric Carle and I wanted to read more of his books to add to my authors fair collection. I would add this book to my personal library because it introduces climates and animals to kids. It also has such a cute story and almost every kid will or has at one point owned a rubber duck. I think that kids would enjoy this book because it is so interactive and has such an adorable story.

[Jordyn Matthews · Rating 3 out of 5]

10 Little Rubber Ducks, written by Eric Carle, is a book about ten little rubber ducks that are all packaged up together and shipped away on a boat. However, one stormy night they all fall off and drift apart in different directions, one left, one right, one South, one North, one East, one West, and so on. On this adventure, each duck encounters and becomes friends with different animals from different parts of the world depending on which way they travel.

I believe that this book could be incorporated into a class activity for younger ages in elementary school. Because each duck gets lost at sea in different direction, and it is addressed as either, north, east, south, or west, it can be used to teach students which animals you will find in each of these directions throughout the world. This can also help teach younger children counting skills by counting up each duck and deciding how many went each direction.

[Katie Page · Rating 4 out of 5]

10 Little Rubber Ducks
Genre: Picture Book: Counting Book
Awards: n/a
Audience: 3-7 years old
A. 10 Little Rubber Ducks presents numbers 1-10, in sequence using simple sentences and captivating collage illustrations through the story of these ten rubber ducks who get thrown overboard and drift away.
B. Eric Carle’s use of texture throughout the images in 10 Little Rubber Ducks adds life and draws the reader in to each detail of the pictures. The texture in the illustrations also provides an added layer of characteristics to the scene being portrayed and adds movement.
C. 10 Little Rubber Ducks could be used in a situation where a child is delayed in understanding counting. This story provides a platform of learning numbers 1-10 amongst a fun story with colorful illustrations which could help promote a child to learn these numbers.
D. What glides past the 6th little rubber duck? - A turtle.

[Brooke Loewen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Inspired by true events, "10 Little Rubber Ducks" is about a flock of rubber ducks who, after falling off a ship, become separated from the one another in the ocean. One their journey to being reunited, each duck crosses paths with a new animal that is also home either in or near the ocean. Carle's artwork was enjoyable in this book, as it is with all of his others. Carle has a very distinct style about his illustrations which can be beneficial in identifying his artwork amongst others. Thinking ahead to how I would use this book in my classroom, I would suggest that this book is used in either Pre-school or Kindergarteners who are first becoming familiarized with numbers and the idea of counting. In older grade levels, however, I could see this book being used as an introduction to directions because, in the story, the ducks get lost in the direction of either north, south, east, or west.