The Ugly Duckling - Hardcover

Moore, Lilian

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0590409573 ISBN 13: 9780590409575

Publisher: Scholastic Inc, 1987

Synopsis

An ugly duckling spends an unhappy year ostracized by the other animals before he grows into a beautiful swan.

About this title

From School Library Journal

Grade 1-3 This is a faithful and lively retelling: still rather lengthy for reading aloud, but with large type and simplified sentence structure to make it accessible to good readers in second or third grade. The typical Andersen blend of satire and sentiment has lost only a bit of its sweet-and-sour pungence. The many illustrations in watercolor and line have an old-fashioned candybox appeal, but are bland by comparison to the text. They are detailed (although not always with the details specified by the story), and San Souci respects the suspense of the sudden transfiguration; but neither does he make much of the moments of terror or of farce. This is a serviceable, but not entirely satisfactory, handling of a tale that might just, after all, be better left without pretty pictures. Patricia Dooley, formerly at Drexel Univ., Phila.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly

The simplified telling here may be more palatable to younger readers, but it flattens the story, making what was poetic stiff and what was funny too protracted. But San Souci's illustrations rescue the edition, in the colors of a faded, favorite patchwork quiltmuted, with many patterns and quaint touches that contribute to a period setting. Certainly, there was never a more downtrodden, woebegone duckling, who later, unaware of his own new beauty, cannot raise his head in front of the swans; he's afraid that his own ugliness will so offend them that they'll want to kill him. Ages 47.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Scholastic Inc
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0590409573
• ISBN 13: 9780590409575
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 46