 |
|
Title: Farmer Duck
ISBN: 1564025969
Author:
Martin Waddell
Publicate Date: 1996-03-01
Publish: 1996-03-01
List Price: $6.99
Average Customer Rating: 4.0
Format: Paperback
 |
|
|
|
|
Amazon Lowest New Price: $3.20
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $0.47
Amazon Merchant Price: $6.99
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Customer Review: |
|
1: Very odd message for American Children
This book seems very odd for an American Child. The human farmer is lazy and makes the duck do all the work while he lays in bed and eats sweets. The other farm animals are shown as typcial animals (the duck must husband them) until they decide to overthrow the lazy farmer who is living off of the ducks hard work. The other animals run the farmer off of his farm. The duck finds out the next morning and then the other animals suddenly join in the work. Ends with them all working co operatively togetherly. Perfect story for Russian children circa 1940 or Vietnam, circa 1976! Better to have the duck decide to start his own farm and thereby reap the benefits of his labor. Or, show that by the duck deciding to leave for other conditions, the farmer must now be nice to the next duck. Or show the duck asking for better working conditions and the farmer at least demonstrating active management style. Or show the animals deciding to help in the first place and maybe the farmer get the idea too. let the farmer learn a lesson. Let the animals help. Let the animals leave for a different farm that has better rules/management is more successful while the lazy farmer reaps just rewards of failure in a free market/economy. Etc. But to simply run the property owner off his own property because he was lazy? And then the workers take over? Very, Very, odd in America! Not American values, not American methods, not American way of business.
We read this at bed time once. Not having pre-read, assuming a farmer toddler book did not need screening, we just looked at each other unbelievingly! One read will not teach my toddler to overthrough the landowners but he will not hear or see this again.
|
2: Cute little book
The illustrations in this book go nicely from gray and gloomy when the duck is being oppressed to bright and sunny when the lazy farmer gets what-for.
There are some logical inconsistencies in the story, but if you're reading this to young kids you can rest assured that they (probably) won't notice.
|
3: Love it!
My daughter loved the book. But, better yet it helped mommy out! When I'm feeling like the duck (which was too often) & my husband is acting like the farmer, I simply start quacking & he starts helping!
|
4: For cryin' out loud, folks. It's just a STORY.
Fourteen years ago, as I read this simple, entertaining, and richly illustrated tale to my children, I'd have never imagined the literary and political controversy that has flared among Amazon reviewers.
*Farmer Duck* is just as inclined politically towards the Protestant Work Ethic as it is towards Socialism. The lesson in this short and simple tale is that lazy and unproductive people will eventually get their come-uppance. Personally, I find it has more of a `French Revolution' flavor but without the guillotine and the violence.
As I read their comments, I find some reviewers are reading a different book than I.
The farmer is portrayed as a lazy and unproductive human because he IS a lazy and unproductive human. He calls from his bed and chair "How goes the work?" rather than put his pants on and go outside like a proper supervisor to view the work in progress.
The animals chase the lazy farmer out of the farmhouse. They don't lay a feather on him. He doesn't resist to defend his 'rightful ownership'. He just runs away.
On the literary analysis level, let's keep things in context. The microcosm presented here is 'Farmer Duck', not *Animal Farm*. Plagiarism? Come on. Comparing the *Farmer Duck* 'philosophy' to *Animal Farm*'s is like comparing a pair of garden shears to a corn harvesting combine.
What makes *Farmer Duck* such a good tool is it's the kind of story that you as a parent can talk with your kids about. Ask them what they felt about the relationships between the farmer, duck, and the animals. Ask them how each character's behavior affected them. Having a dialogue with your children about a not-so-black-and-white subject might open doors of opportunity for you as a parent and allow you to share with them what YOU think about it.
Or you can just read it to/with your kids, have fun, and enjoy this excellentstory by Martin Waddell and imaginative pictures by Helen Oxenbury.
|
5: Animal Farm
All these people who wrote good reviews are insane, or shamelessly politically biased.
This book is Animal Farm, if you are a employee of Immi Truth from 1984. They are rewriting history people, and marketing a socialist ideal to our childeren.
George Orwell must be rolling around in his grave.
This an example of the worst kind of brain washing. VERY 1984, to try and indoctrinate the childeren into the INGSOC mentality.
|
|
|
|
|
