Marmaduke Duck on the Wide Blue Seas product reviews

When I saw this story come up as a review item, I straight away put my name forward, as I adore Marmaduke Duck, and this story is no exception to that. Marmaduke Duck on the Wide Blue Seas certainly grabs your interest from the first page and is a delightful, quick paced story that will be enjoyed by both children and adults.

The front cover is bright, bold and draws your attention in quickly - after all - how often is a PIRATE DUCK seen?! His "wooden spoon sword and his orange (the fruit) have to make you smile. I adored the illustrations all the way through this book - delightfully realistic, yet wonderfully cartoony, making them a great match to the story. All the way through they have a great depth and placement, keeping the children enthralled with what they might find next on the page.

My middle daughter was the first to find Marmaduke and wanted to read him straight away - and by that I mean - read him to me. How to tell a good story? When the nearly 3 year old can tell you almost the story based on the pictures, making them a great match to the story. After our first "read" through, I read it to her, and the giggles that followed were gorgeous. She loved the rhyming of the book, all the alliteration, and the beautiful pictures. Both my other two children enjoyed this book too - my eldest daughter (five) loved anticipating the rhyming and making alternate endings, and I incorporated baby sign and taught "duck" to my 14 month old.

The story is cute and catchy - Maramduke dreams of bigger, better, more exciting things, and this little "duck with pluck" takes himself off to find it. Discovering a ship, and an unlikely assortment of crew, he sneaks away on an adventure. Unfortunately he comes across a naughty pirate, but ... well, I better not ruin the story completely!!! Suffice to say - READ IT and discover the ending!

Whilst we do not own the other Marmaduke books, we have borrowed and read them from the library, so I have no doubt this one will become a regular read and favourite in our house. The price, whilst on the slightly higher side, is not too steep, and is worth it, in my opinion, as the story and illustrations will totally make it a favourite.

Recommend this book to young and not so young as a lovely read!

This was my first introduction to Marmaduke Duck, and I must say that I was quite taken with the cover art. It looks exciting with a touch of silly. Here is this duck, with a citrus sailor hat, standing in the crow's nest with an eye glass but instead of a cutlass, he has a wooden spoon. It made me want to read it.

My eldest daughter was immediately keen. "Oh, It's Marmaduke, Mummy! It's Marmaduke". She had already been well introduced through day care or school to the duck with pluck. She was very surprised that I didn't know anything about this duck and kept laughing at me for not knowing.

The story itself is really neat. I think everyone can relate to having a pretty good life, but having a daydream of something more or different in some way. Marmaduke is a dream-chaser which I think is awesome. Though, the dreams he is chasing are quite far removed from his talents. I've read this with both children. My eldest sat right next to me, pointing to the pictures right through the story. We both loved that the illustrations included Marmaduke's and Bernadette's paths throughout the story.

Sitting with my youngest daughter, she absolutely loved the illustrations as well. She pointed at many of the animals and said "moo! moo!" or "GGRRRRRR". She laughed at the silly antics of the animals. She made burping sick sounds when it was appropriate. She even looked shocked and said "Oh no!" when things got dangerous. It was obvious that she got a lot out of this story, and for 2 years old she had a lot of patience for this.

Having tried this one, I am actually quite keen to get the other two books in this series. I think that says a lot for the fun this book has been. It's highly re-readable and my kids have been requesting it again and again. The price is not too bad for a full size paperback picture book and certainly I would consider buying this again for birthday or Christmas presents.