One Duck Stuck

This is a classroom-tested counting book that genuinely earns its place — the onomatopoeia and escalating animal groups make every read-aloud a participatory event, and the wetland setting is ecologically real rather than generic. The one honest weakness is that the rescue logic is never explained, which Publishers Weekly flagged: children may wonder exactly how the dragonflies helped, and the duck stepping free at the end feels a little abrupt. Even with that quibble, the Oppenheim Gold, the NCTE recognition, and years of preschool use speak for themselves.