Critter Conspiracy: Giggle, Giggle, Quack by Doreen Cronin

Farmer Brown is going on vacation. He left his brother Bob in charge of the animals.

"I wrote everything down for you," he told him. "Just follow instructions and everything will be fine.

Just keep a eye on Duck. He's trouble."

Brother Bob's a laid-back kind of guy. He's got written directions. The animals seem to like him. He's got this!

What could possibly go wrong?

But Bob fails to notice that Farmer Brown has dropped his pencil on the road and Duck is retrieving it with a gleam in his eye.

The next day he reads his first note of instructions.

Tuesday is pizza night. (NOT the frozen kind) The hens prefers anchovies.

So on Tuesday Brother Bob forks over the big bucks and a sizable tip to the pizza delivery boy for seven extra-large pizzas. When Farmer Brown calls from his tropical isle, Bob tells him he's got everything under control.

The directions for Wednesday instruct Brother Bob to bathe the pigs with Farmer Brown's bubble bath and best bath towels. Bob sweats as he spends his day as proprietor of a pampered pig spa for the sows, piglets, shoats, and one sudsy boar!

The next note says that Thursday night is Movie Night. While the animals get comfy on the sofa, Bob pops a pile of popcorn. Just as he's got it ready, Farmer Brown calls to check on things.

But what's that he hears in the living room?

It's the strains of a song: "The hills are alive ... with the sound of MOOsic!" and a chorus of critters:

GIGGLE GIGGLE QUACK! MOO! GIGGLE! OINK!

It's a case of When Farmer Brown is away, the critters will play, with a little help from Duck's cleverly counterfeited notes, in Doreen Cronin's best-selling easy-to-read barnyard tale, Giggle, Giggle, Quack (A Click, Clack Book) (Simon and Schuster), along with Betsy Lewin's familiar comic blackline and watercolored spot-art illustrations that help youngsters read this one themselves. Other books in this mega-popular series are Dooby Dooby Moo/Ready-to-Read (A Click Clack Book), Click, Clack, Surprise!/Ready-to-Read (A Click Clack Book), and Betsy Lewin's Caldecott-winning  Ready-to-Read book with author Cronin, Click, Clack, Moo Cows That Type.