Oh what a cute little book! I would love to curate a storytime based around this book...and may have to do that!

I was also looking for this to be extremely funny (which is how I would define sidesplitting) but it ... wasn't. The two little girls are adorable and I liked watching them play and interact together. But while the toys were also cute - at times - mostly they were just surly and annoyed. The premise of toys who don't get along as well as their owners do sounded cute but in reality, there really isn't that much to this book. And for the illustrations to be done by someone who was at Dreamworks, I expected better. Or at least to be able to make out fine details which this arc didn't allow.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for providing me with an ARC

I was unable to view the illustrations for this book. The story was really cute and I think kids would enjoy it. I'll have to check out the finished copy when it is published.

I feel like I missed something here. Duck and Penguin go from not wanting to do anything together (and, in fact, they're shown physically abusing each other on the beginning endpapers) to being friends. Because... they have a shared disdain for playing with their human owners? I guess maybe a shared hatred for playing "itty-bitty babies" may have brought them together, but it's kind of a thin premise to hang the whole story on.

The illustrations don't really do anything for me, either (but the dismal quality of the ARC didn't help; I could barely see what I was looking at through all the pixelation).

I didn't find this as "side-splitting" as the synopsis suggests. Mostly, I was bored. And looking at the surly expressions on the toys' faces got old pretty fast.

Duck and Penguin Are Not Friends is a cute picture book about the stuffed animals of two best friends named Maud and Betty. Despite Maude and Betty being friends, as the title suggests, Duck and Penguin are *not* friends. They do not like playing in the sand together, or baking together or painting together or doing anything together. The one thing that they can agree on is that they hate playing itty-bitty babies the most. Is that enough to bring them together? This is an interesting concept that I haven't seen before and the illustrations are cute.

I received a copy from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.