The Ugly Duckling

Title: The Ugly Duckling
Adapted and illustrated by: Jerry Pinkney
Genre: Folktale

Summary
The book begins in the summer with a duck sitting on six eggs. Five of the eggs were small, but the other one was oddly shaped and much larger than the other eggs. A few days later the duck saw tiny cracks on the eggs so she sat on the nest and did not move the rest of the night. Before the next morning, the five eggs were empty and five chicks were staring up at her. She wondered why the sixth egg had not hatched yet. A few days later the egg cracked open and the mother saw that the duckling had a long neck and was very dull in color. Everyone thought he was ugly and as time went on things began to get worse for the little duckling. He was constantly being chased by all the ducks, even his own brothers and sisters. One night he decided he had had enough and ran away. He finds a home with an old woman, however her cat and hen tease him so much that he decides to set off on his own once again. He sees a flock of migrating birds and is excited, but he cannot join them. Winter comes and a farmer finds him stuck in a frozen pond and decides to take him home, however the farmer’s children scare him and he decides to leave the house. The rest of the winter months were horrible for the duckling, it was cold and he never had enough food, but finally spring came. He saw a flock of the beautiful birds he had seen in the sky during previous months before and he decided to follow them. The duckling stretched out his wings and lifted himself into the air to fly down to the water. After he reached the water, the other birds swam to meet him. He was confused why they had come to welcome him since he was so ugly, but then he looked into the water and saw a reflection of himself in the water. Right in front of his face he saw the beautiful swan he had turned into.

Classroom Discussion
The Ugly Duckling can lead to a classroom discussion about people and their differences. Students can talk about the difficulties of being different and how they have personally been attacked because they were different. In this discussion students will be able to express their feelings about how bad it hurt them to be singled out. On the other hand, students should also discuss whether they treated someone else differently because they did not look or act the same way as you do. This discussion will hopefully allow the students to open up to one another and understand that everyone is unique in their own way and understand that it is okay to be different.