Rasco From RIF

WEEK’S END: World Duck Calling Contest & a book about those ducks!

November 21st, 2009

I spent Friday getting ready to fly to Arkansas where I will be for the next week visiting with family and celebrating Thanksgiving.  And of course I will be spending a considerable amount of my time here with William (you know, my first grandchild born in April!).   Thanksgiving in my home county, Arkansas County, is also the period when duck season opens and the Wings Over the Prairie Festival is held.  Or as the natives called this festival when I was growing up in DeWitt, it’s The Duck Calling Contest given the World Championship Duck Caller is named at this event each year. 

So what is duck calling all about?  Shelby Free, a 16-year-old lady from Stuttgart, Arkansas who was crowned the 2008 Women’s World Champion in 2008 has made a short 30 second video that will allow you to hear champion quality duck calling if you are not familiar with it.  Shelby first won this high honor at age 14.  She opened the ProLiteracy Conference held in Arkansas last year;  there were some surprised attendees in the audience to hear this young woman bring so much sound from a small wooden duck caller!

Another of the favorite events at the Festival is the World Duck Gumbo Cook-Off;  it is quite the party I am told!  The Cook-Off was added after I moved to DC; and family visiting has kept me from the festival in recent years.  I’ll be back though, someday.

This year there is a great new picture book to add to the duck hunting mania:  Gadwall, King of the Ducks is a fun story written by Dan Davidson, a family physician from Searcy, Arkansas (home of Arkansas’ current Governor Mike Beebe) and illustrated through cut block  technique by his daughter-in-law Bethany Davidson who is a graphic designer in California.  The book was called to my attention by a friend from college days who is a neighbor of Dr. Davidson and his wife.

Gadwall is a great read aloud book for a family with children in the age grouping of 4-8 years of age in particular.   It is a story that finds Gadwall coming to the rescue of his duck colleagues to lead them to Mexico for the winter and helping them to avoid those duck hunters in Arkansas and other places along the way!  Gadwall comes up with a great innovation for his “guide” work at night, a very impressive duck and a great book for William to learn in the future more about his grandmother’s home territory.

Quack, quack, happy reading!
Carol

WEEK’S END closes the work week with some thoughts, comments, feelings about some book and/or event recently experienced.  If a book, it may be a children’s book or an adult book or both.  If an event, it may be literacy-related or not.  But it comes at week’s end.

Twitter: @RascofromRIF 

Filed under: Children's Books, Musings, Week's End

Tags: Arkansas County, Bethany Davidson, Dan Davidson, DeWitt, Gadwall: King of the Ducks, Governor Mike Beebe, mallard ducks, ProLiteracy, Searcy Arkansas, Shelby Free, Wings Over the Prairie Festival, Work Duck Gumbo Cook-Off, World Championship Duck Calling Contest