Welcome to the world of La Montagne Secrète - a world in which tiny ducks hoof it up on Broadway, alligators tango and slugs sing opera.

La Montagne Secrète is a Montreal company that isn't quite a book publisher but publishes books, and isn't quite a recording company but produces CDs.

Its latest product is the book-CD A Duck in New York City, written and composed by singer and songwriter Connie Kaldor and illustrated by the husband-and-wife team Fil & Julie.

The CD includes 12 children's songs Kaldor has written over the years but never released. The featured song is about a duck's courageous efforts to become a Broadway star.

The idea for the song came to Kaldor during a taxi ride in Manhattan 15 years ago.

"Someone had left a little rubber duck in the cab and I started playing with it," she said with a chuckle. "I started thinking about how a cute little duck could survive in such a big city."

Kaldor is not a children's performer by trade. She's a veteran of both the recording studio and live stage, but the only singing she has done for children was for her two sons. (Both sing on the Duck CD.)

"And now I'm a published author, too," she said with a raucous laugh. "Me, Margaret Atwood and Madonna."

It was the creative trio who run La Montagne Secrète that gave the song about the duck a brand new life and look. So what if it took 15 years.

The 3-year-old company is run by artistic director Roland Stringer, music producer Paul Campagne, who is also Caldor's husband, and graphic artist Stéphan Lorti.

The company's mission is to produce quality books, CDs, DVDs and book-CDs for children, with equal emphasis put on music, story and illustrations.

"Roland works on the overall concept of a project and offers guidelines," Lorti said. "Then he becomes the observer. Other producers had trouble letting go, but with Roland there is a trust."

Lorti has been working on projects with Stringer and Campagne since the mid-1990s. Three months ago, the 39-year-old opened Haus Design Communications with three other graphic designers.

"Projects at (Montagne Secrète) are always done with good humour," he said. "We have created a special universe. To us, La Montagne Secrète is a place that exists."

What's rare about La Montagne Secrète is that all the talent is involved in shaping the project from the get-go. This results in very few corrections needing to be made because everybody has worked on the original concept.

"We don't even need to say the words if something isn't working," Campagne said.

"Reading each other is second nature - it could be a shift in the eyes or a twist of the neck."

Stringer, 43, and Campagne, 41, have known each other since their high-school days in Saskatchewan. Campagne comes from a well-known musical family. Sister Carmen is a popular family entertainer, and when he's not producing records for La Montagne Secrète, Campagne performs with sisters Suzanne and Michelle in the group Hart Rouge.

Seven years ago, he insisted Kaldor put her children's music on tape. The tape, which included the duck song, appealed to Stringer, but he needed time to come up with a concept.

The first two years of the company's existence produced two recordings: Un Trésor dans mon jardin features established artists, including Lynda Lemay, Daniel Lavoie, Michel Rivard and Hart Rouge singing children's songs written by Gilles Vigneault. The CD included a booklet with lyrics illustrated by Stéphane Jorisch.

Dodo la planète do is a collection of international lullabies performed by a roster of artists born elsewhere, now living in Montreal. A book-CD, illustrated by Sylvie Bourbonnière, was just released.

Jardin has gone even further. The illustrations and songs were animated by producer Paul Cadieux and Tooncan Productions and now play on both the French and English Teletoon channels, and a DVD was just released.

Jardin is "the first of our projects to complete the cycle I envision," Stringer said. "We want (all our projects) to be animated and are aware of this from the moment we sit down to discuss what artists to approach or what illustrators to use."

The company also just released the book-CD Le Chat Musicien, illustrated by Jorisch and featuring different artists singing classic old French songs, and the book-CD Le Tango des Animaux, a collection of Carmen Campagne's popular animal songs, with illustrations by Élise Gravel.

La Montagne Secrète's song catalogue is also available for downloading - 99 cents per song - from www.puretracks.com

Connie Kaldor reads from A Duck in New York City and sings songs from the CD at Nicholas Hoare, 1366 Greene Ave., Dec. 6 at 11 a.m.

kgreenaway@thegazette.canwest.com