Doreen Cronin’s plucky Duck throws his hat into the ring for the 2004 presidential race in her newest book about barnyard politics. Duck first appeared four years ago in the crowd-pleaser, Click Clack Moo: Cows That Type , as the “neutral party” who carried the ultimatum from the striking farm animals to Farmer Brown. By the book’s end, Duck’s political savvy had grown to such an extent that in the follow up, Giggle Giggle Quack , he was a full-fledged organizer, pegged as “trouble” by the dictatorial farmer. In his latest venture, Duck first decides to take on Farmer Brown and handily wins an election in which the barnyard animals vote to determine who should be in charge of the farm. Once he gets a taste for politics, he decides to run for governor, surprising everyone with his narrow victory over a human incumbent. But the governor’s job turns out to be more work than Duck imagined, and since Duck’s forte is campaigning, he decides to make a run for president of the United States. There are a lot of inside jokes that will be completely lost on children (Duck playing the saxophone on late-night television and his ever-changing campaign mottos, from “For a kinder, gentler farm” to “I’m a duck, not a politician”), but the overall theme of a smaller, weaker character triumphing over the big and powerful always appeals to the younger set. (Ages 5–8)

Our fellow Americans,It is our pleasure, our honor, our duty as citizens to present to you Duck for president in 2008. Here is a duck who began in a humble pond, who worked his way up to farmer, to governor, and now perhaps the highest office in the land.Some say if he walks like a duck and talks like a duck, he is a duck.We say if he walks like a duck and talks like a duck, he will be the next president of the United States of America.Thank you for your vote.