by Moe Zilla

Created on: August 16, 2010

I finally found the sequel to "Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type." (I'd thought it was Doreen Cronin's "Click, Clack, Quackity-Quack" - but that was just a book for learning the alphabet.) As this book opens, the duck is seen mowing his lawn, and he looks up to see a passing airplane. It's trailing a red, white and blue streamer, which says one word: "Vote."

According to Wikipedia, President Bush's wife read the book as part of the White House Easter Egg roll in 2007 - and it's easy to see why. The animals on the farm are each assigned chores by Farmer Brown, and Duck decides that he doesn't like this. "Why is Farmer Brown in charge anyway?" he thinks. "What we need is an election!" He nails up a sign in the barn, while the other animals look on approvingly, and later there's even an allusion to a slogan by the first President Bush. One of Duck's campaign posters promises the animals "a kinder, gentler farm."

The book was written in 2004, four years after Cronin's original story, and it's really fun to re-visit the farm to see what happened next. The animals all begin registering to vote, and on election day, "each of the animals filled out a ballot and placed it in a box." Like the first book, there's an illustration of Farmer Brown shaking his fists at a sign the animals have posted on his barn. But this time, the sign is the election results.

Farmer Brown: 6.
Duck: 20.

This election wasn't plagued by chads, but Farmer Brown still demanded a recount. ("One sticky ballot was found stuck to the bottom of a pig.") But the duck still won, and that night his staff immediately started working on campaign slogans for his run for governor.  ("I'm a duck, not a politician!") Ironically, in order to hit the campaign trail, the Duck has to leave Farmer Brown in charge of the farm. But he seems to be happy for the change, because running the farm had been hard work.

The governor of the state is a female - and at this point, I had to wonder if the author was parodying the career of George W. Bush. He'd defeated the female governor of Texas, then very soon after ran for President, and used the tried-and-true political strategy known as "dog whistle" sound bites. (Whereas in this book, the duck "gave speeches that only other ducks could understand.") If so, it's an unflattering parody, since the Duck decides running a state is also hard work - and then decides that he'll run for President. Although at this point, the parody started to remind me of Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign, since the duck won over supporters by playing the saxophone on late-night television.

Honestly, this story felt a little "trendy," inserting hot-button in-jokes about politics. But when the duck's elected President, there's a wonderful drawing of the Oval Office which parodies a famous photograph of President Kennedy. Facing away from the camera, with his head hung over his desk, Kennedy had seemed to have the weight of the world on his shoulders. Illustrator Betsy Lewin recreates that black-and-white photograph using the simple blue from the book's watercolor palette. But this time the troubled chief executive is a very worried duck!

The duck eventually resigns the Presidency - since it's also too much work - and returns to his home state, and life with Farmer Brown. Like the former President Bush, he returned to his ranch and began working on his autobiography. But the last illustration shows duck had to try three opening sentences before he'd finally found the right message.

    For score and seven years ago...
    The only thing we have to fear...
    Ask not what your country...

    Running a farm is hard work.

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