Marjorie Flack

The Story about Ping (Reading Railroad Books)

Michael Springer

Since this is a children's book review, I ought to warn you: 

 

Okay, so this book is FUCKED up. It's about a cute little duck who lives somewhere in China, and he's one of the many ducks that lives on some kinda boat, and every day he's supposed to get back on the boat at the end of his time hanging out in the water. And, every day, the last duck on the boat gets hit on the butt by the human who is in charge of the boat. It's VIOLENT! 

So, our protagonist, named PING, loses track of time, and he sees that he's going to be the last duck on the boat, and instead of getting on, he hides. Then, he's LOST in the GREAT BIG WORLD, and it's SCARY. He gets, like, KIDNAPPED and stuff, and eventually gets eaten.

No, he doesn't get eaten. I was checking to see if you were paying attention. He gets picked up by a cute little boy, who then helps him get back to his boat, and he lives kinda-sorta-happily-ever-after on the boat with the evil man who occasionally beats him. LOVELY, huh?

Seriously, Ping is a jacked up little book, and if your goal is to make sure your abused children never get up the courage to run away, this is the book to own. But despite the strange kinda-sorta message of the book, I LOVED it when I was a little kid because my mom read it to me all the time. And, whenever she said the name of the duck, which was Ping, she would poke me on the nose and say "PING!" in this funny high-pitched voice, and every time I would laugh. This is why I liked the book Ping, not because of its bizarre portrayal of reality, and its twisted, sadomasochistic message.

The Story about Ping (Reading Railroad Books)

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