Hit the Ball Duck

by Jez Alborough

New cover reissue in million copy best-selling Duck in the Truck series.


Duck and friends go out one day
with a bat, a ball and a glove to play.


Duck hits the ball – but where does it fall?
On a branch in the tree, now they can’t play at all.


Frog has an idea, Duck lends a hand
but nothing turns out quite as planned.

Genres: Picture Books, Baseball, Childrens, Sports, Animals, Storytime, Fiction

32 pages, Hardcover

First published September 5, 2005

About the author

Jez is the author and illustrator of 48 books for children. In 2018 he published The Story of 'You' his first book for adults, the first in a series called Life Beyond Personality. He says: "We enter this world as pure Oneness, (what I call our ‘original state of Being’) but we lose this as we become identified with our Personality. In that identification, the Stillness and Love of our Original State is overshadowed by the suffering of the Personality.

"Our Personality creates its own dream from the deep-seated beliefs and emotions it harbours; a dream that can be full of emotional distress, over-thinking and the constant investment in a future which never quite delivers on the belief: ‘When I get this I’ll be happy.’ The Story of ‘You’ suggests it’s possible to wake up out of that dream. When that happens, a whole new adventure begins in a life beyond the Personality."

The Infinite Journey, the second Book in the series, is published in early 2019.


Children's Books

His Eddy and the Bear trilogy (which began with the much-loved Where's My Teddy in 1992) has sold nearly four and a half million copies and was made into an BAFTA award-winning animated television series.

Duck in the Truck (published in 1999) heralded the start of another bestselling series, this time featuring the irrepressible Duck and his three friends - Frog, Goat and Sheep. There are currently nine books in the Duck series and almost than 1.5 million copies have been sold.

In 2000 Jez created Hug - a powerful and touching book of only three words about a baby chimpanzee called Bobo who loses his Mom. Oprah Winfrey raved about it on her show when she chose it for her recommended reading list while Richard Curtis (the writer and director of Four Weddings and a Funeral) selected it as one of his ‘Best Books’, calling it ‘classic family drama which holds up well next to Jez’s other masterpieces.’ Bobo went on to star in thee more classics; Tall ( which along with Hug won the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Platinum Book Award) Yes and Play. The series has sold almost 3 million copies.

Jez lives in West London. You can read more about his books for children in the JezAlborough.com library and about The Story of 'You' at LifeBeyondPersonality.com.

Jez's Facebook page is: http://www.facebook.com/jezalborough and you can follow him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jezalborough

Reviews

[BiblioBeruthiel]

The duck's hands are so terrifying in this I couldn't pay attention to anything else.

[Fatima Seraj Alam]

Duck is kinda bossy which irritated me but overall a fun rhymy book about teamwork.

[Stephanie Watson]

I really like this book because it shows the importance of working together. The book shows in the text and pictures that teamwork is important for everyone!

[Doris Lucas]

This book is about a group of animals who go to the park to play baseball. All the equipment ends up in a tree. The animals worked together to retrieve it. It would be good to use to demonstrate those text features to my second-grade class. This book discusses struggles and how to deal with them. I would use this book to teach about proper socialization.

[Emily Jones]

A group of animals decides to play baseball, but when Duck is up to bat, he hits the ball so hard that it goes high in the sky and gets stuck in a tree. The rest of the book has little/nothing to do with baseball and is just the animals working together to get the ball unstuck. It's not the best book I've read, but I think it'll do for a baseball-themed storytime.

[Denise Kettering]

Duck hits the ball into the tree and then he has to work with his friends to get the ball out of the tree. This book has a nice rhyming structure and the animals have to use problem-solving skills and cooperation to fix the problem, which is a nice message. This book was o.k., but I prefer some of the others in the series more.

[Alisha Oakley]

For some reason I just didn't enjoy this book and neither did the class... I think it was very wordy and became confusing. They were definitely trying to portray a message but it was just messy in the end.

[Janet]

Using a rhyming text we hear the story of Duck and three friends off to the park to play baseball. Who doesn’t like a good baseball story in Spring and Simmer. Oh, Duck hits the ball and where does it go, up on a tree branch. How will the fun afternoon continue?

[Kelly]

Duck and his friends are playing baseball when the ball gets stuck in a tree. It takes teamwork to solve this problem.

[Sarah]

Rhymes. Duck is a jerk.

[DiAnne Warfield]

Holt-Delhi PJ story time 04-27-2022

[Lauren]

Fairly insipid, but also the kind of silly, quick, and predictable story that will work well at story time if you perform it well.

[Kelly Chester]

Super cute book pictures are great

[Nicole Stanton]

I love books that rhyme!

[Jared]

This is one of the greatest children's books in the history of all the world on earth ever...times infinity. That crazy duck is back with all of his friends and it doesn't take long for the hi jinks to ensue. I don't want to give it all away but that duck actually thinks he can throw the....as a means of getting the.....already up....!!! There is some dark drama as Duck begins to see that the plight of his baseball endeavor is really a metaphor for the struggle of man v. his own shadowy tendencies (think Leviathan) Thankfully frog is there at the ready to add the comic relief that keeps this story from leading the young reader from a certain path laced with drugs, self doubt, and ultimately suicide. After Duck in the Truck, I felt as if I had reached the state of nirvana that so many Eastern religions value as exaltation...imagine my joy with this repeat. I love you Duck... I would leave my family right now just for a few blissful moments alone with you and your friends in your strange, cartoon animal talking paradise.

[Kate Hastings]

Rhyming text follows a baseball game that ends abruptly when the ball becomes lodged in the tree. Funny story.

--grades K-2
--Alborough’s duck books can serve as simple physics lessons.
--For each action is an equal and opposite reaction (the baseball being hit by the bat)
--when the ball gets stuck in a tree—talk about kinetic and potential energy.
--why do things fall? Gravity.
--many hidden science lessons in this short picture book.

[Robert]

This is a silly story about a group of animals who go to the park to play baseball. All the equipment ends up in a tree. The animals work together to retrieve it.

There is some good use of onomatopoeia and dialogue in this book. It would be good to use to demonstrate those text features to my fourth graders. The story itself, however, is forgetable.

[Kristen]

I'm becoming a big Jez Alborough fan. I thought this had the right mixture of humor and fun to make it a good pick for story time. I read it to toddlers--might bump up to preschoolers next time as concepts like baseball are perhaps a bit more meaningful to them. I enjoyed the rhyme throughout and just found the hijinx to be highly amusing.

[The Brothers]

Duck and his friends set out to play some baseball, but as is the way with Duck and his friends, it is ill-fated. The ball, and eventually the bat and glove end up in a tree. By working together the friends manage to get them down.

Goofy fun illustrations.

[Traci]

My nephew is four years old. He can't read yet. He has this book memorized.

[Amber]

This book rhymes. I'm not a huge fan of books the rhyme. The illustrations were created using markers. The estory is about a group of friends playing a game of baseball.

[Becky]

We've really found some good ones at the library lately!

[Emily]

Emily cries every time I read this with her - I don't know why. I would have given it 3, so I averaged it. Good rhymes, but not particularly memorable.

[Library Quine]

A fun rhyming story about a ball game and a ball stuck up a tree. The animals have various solutions and a certain amount of team work is required to resolve the problem.

[Bethany]

What do you do when everything goes wrong? This book deals with struggles and how to deal with them. Very useful book to teach about proper socialization also.

[Tracy]

I think that Jez Alborough has a very child like sense of humor. I like this one.

[Melissa]

Cute story, but why doesn't Duck fly?

Also i think they call it a pitcher in baseball, rather then a bowler.

Emily enjoyed it

[Liz Todd]

I liked that the little frog was the one to solve the problem--and that he called that silly duck "out."

Great pictures that will make the story clear to picture readers.

[Stacey Mulholland]

Cute story idea. Didn't like how the frog and duck had big creepy people style hands though.

[Rachel]

I love the Duck series! Duck's always doing something crazy... he makes me laugh.