Marjorie Flack (1892–1958)

Angus, a young puppy, is very curious about the world around him like who was that little dog in the mirror and “Things-Which-Come-Apart and those Things-Which-Don’t-Come-Apart such as SLIPPERS and gentlemen’s SUSPENDERS and things like that.” He’s also very curious about things outside, but there his ability to investigate things is limited by a leash and the person holding it. But one day an open door allows him to escape outdoors and find out what was making that quacking noise next door, and there he makes some surprising and startling new discoveries.… (lisätietoja)

I loved this book as a kid, though I don't know enough to know whether the pictures of the people hold up these days. To me, it's a cute little adventure story. A little duck on the Yangtze river in China hides to avoid a spanking when he's late getting home...but then the boat with his family sails away and he must follow them down the river, dodging lots of different boats, meeting diving birds, and kind boys who think he's too pretty to turn into dinner.

I was disappointed to find that this particular edition is abridged--for some reason I remember particularly well a page in which a man who keeps cormorants feeds them slivers of fish in exchange for the whole ones they catch--but this page is gone, and all it says is that the birds could never eat the fish they catch because of the rings on their necks. I'll gift the book, but I'm sorry it's not the whole thing!… (lisätietoja)