Duck and Swan

Product Description
New 2011 edition
A moving and often funny story of friendship and acceptance set against a background of intolerance and high adventure in a quiet part of County Galway. When Martin ‘Duck’ Oduki, abandoned in Dublin by a Nigerian father and Irish drug-addicted mother, runs away from St. Mark’s Care Center, Emer ‘Swan’ Healy discovers him hiding on a school bus bound for Galway. Watching her own sick mother struggle to regain her health, Swan is also running from the pain and confusion she feels. It isn’t long before the two children realize they need each other. Duck finds other unusual allies in Granny Flynn and her husband Tom, who is blind.

School Library Journal
On a school trip to Dublin, Emer discovers a stowaway on the bus-12-year-old Martin Oduki, a.k.a. Duck. He is a half-Nigerian, half-Irish boy who has escaped from St. Mark’s, a home for delinquent boys, where he was sent after his drug-dealing mother’s arrest. With Emer’s help, he is able to hide out in a barn for a few days. Just when his hiding place is discovered and it looks like he’ll have to go on the lam again, he is taken in by an elderly couple, Granny Flynn and Blind Tom, where he is introduced to the game of hurling. Eventually, others find out about Duck’s athletic talents and, in spite of their suspicion of him because of the color of his skin, want him to play on the local team. All the while, he is being hunted by “the Beak,” a man from St. Mark’s. Just before the big game, in which Duck is to play, the Beak catches him and begins to drive him back to the home. However, an accident gives the boy a chance to escape and he makes it back in time to lead his team to victory. Quinn touches on several themes but doesn’t explore them deeply-racism, illiteracy, and parental illness. These issues seem superimposed on the plot and incongruous with the story. Also, the many Irishisms may be off-putting to readers.-Rebecca O’Connell, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh