Idiot-proofing the baby library: My review of “Five Little Ducks”

FIVE LITTLE DUCKS

By Raffi. Illustrated by Jose Aruego and Ariane Dewey
Random House (1989) (Board book, ages 6+m)

Imagine you’re a baby.

What’s your biggest, hugest, most insane fear? The one that results in a hysterical, high-pitched scream where the time between each spine-twisting wail lasts up to 30-seconds as you suck, suck, suck in the O2 to fill your tiny lungs and then re-attack the world with your animal noise?

You know, that fear? The one that makes you hold out your arms and sob uncontrollably as you toddle like a zombie stalker, single-minded in your quest to attach like Velcro to the shins of the Mommy?

C’mon, you can feel it. The terrifying nightmare that pulls you out of slumber, causes you to wrench your body onto it’s little chubby feet late, late at night while you emit a soul-crushing, trembling, incessant moan?

Do you have it inside you now? It’s the one thing that you can’t even bear to comprehend, so you cling and hope and feel the warmth of the Mommy and the Daddy, blanketing them in your tiny arms, gripping and pinching them with your slender fingers, feeling their reality and proximity.

The fear is that they will leave the room, and never, never, ever come back.

This book about ducks "going out one day..."

“Quack, quack, quack. But none of the five little ducks came back." 

There may be a happy ending in here somewhere, but I had to push down the urge to cry and vomit simultaneously at this point in the story.

I immediately called my mom to tell her I love her.

This is the worst book ever written.