Giggle, Giggle, Quack by Doreen Cronin

Genre: Fiction/Picture Book
Age range: 3-7
Summary: Like how children act out when they have a substitute teacher, so does a barn full of animals when their farmer goes away and leaves his brother in charge. And like in every classroom, there is a class clown. In this group, the class clown is the duck who the farmer had previously warned the brother about. He and the other barnyard animals continually play pranks on the farmer’s brother in order to take advantage of his ignorance. The brother finds all of these notes with instructions on how to care for the animals. The chickens get pizza—delivery. The pigs get their bath—with the farmer’s bubble bath and fluffy towels. In the pictures, the duck is found holding a pencil, for he is the author of these forged notes. When the farmer calls, he asks his brother if he received his notes. The brother replied that he has. The farmer asks if duck is giving him any problems. The brother replies no. But the farmer, after a while, knows that something is up for he hears a “quack” on the other end of the telephone. The brother then comes clean to the brother as to everything that had happened, packed his bags, and headed out of town before the brother could come home to find his barn in disarray.