Nora's Duck

Nora's Duck
Satomi Ichikawa

Philomel Books
New York
1991

This tells the story of a little girl named Nora who finds an injured duckling. She brings the duckling to Dr. John and learns that he cares for many animals. She meets all the animals and visits with them. Once the little duckling is healed, the duckling meets all the other animals. The duckling looks at Nora as if she is trying to tell Nora something, but Nora does not know what she is saying. Dr. John explains to Nora that just because they can not speak with words does not mean they cannot communicate. Nora "listens" to what the duckling wants and helps the duckling achieve her desire.

Noteworthy Features:

• This book was written by a Japanese women who based this book after her friend Doctor John who lives in Europe with many animals like Doctor John from the story.
• The pictures in this book appear delicate. The lines used to draw the images are thin and exact. The characters features appear to be Japanese. Almost every page has a picture on it. 

This is a very cute book about a little girl taking care of an animal. I think that a bigger lesson from this book is learning the ability to understand someone without them physically speaking. Teachers can use this book as a cute story, but then go on to talk about body language and how she is using this with animals, but people also use body language to portray their feelings and thoughts.

Links for Classroom Activities:

• Understanding Body Language Activities
• Video Idea for teaching (below)