The Ugly Duckling Returns

Tony Bradman's The Ugly Duckling Returns is a funny what-happened-next fairy tale for 6 year olds about a famous swan who wants to do some good.

What happens

We all know how the Ugly Duckling's story ends. He grows up into a beautiful swan. In this book he's so handsome he's become a model, and the most famous face in the whole Forest!

Crowds of goose girls scream when he steps out of Forest TV (a few of them faint). Reporters and a troll with a camera shout "Give us a smile, Swan!" He's whisked home in a limo to his fabulous mansion.

But the limo gets stuck in a traffic jam. The Forest is full of cars and the pollution is awful, and nobody seems to care. That bothers him.

So he joins Rapunzel's Save The Forest! campaign. He swaps the limo for a bike and promises to get them on TV.

It doesn't go to plan. The fans stampede into the first rally, and the reporters only want pictures of his face. Nobody listens to a word anyone says. So he comes up with a clever plan that means facing the one thing he's most afraid of.

It's short and quick to read, in five little chapters. There's lots to spot, like trolls running the TV station and Rapunzel living in a palace. Who'd have guessed the Ugly Duckling would end up in all the magazines?

If your little one knows the original story, they'll love the joke of him being famous now. It's a gentle way into chatting about looking after the planet. And about looks not being the most important thing about anyone.

What to read next

For more fairy tales that don't go the way you expect, Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes retells Cinderella and Jack and the Beanstalk in rhyme. It's a lot ruder and a lot more gruesome, so you might want to read that one together first.