Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) was born in Odense, Denmark. The author is considered the father of the modern fairy tales. To honor his memory the International Children’s Book Day is celebrated on April 2, the birthday of Hans Andersen. International Day. After him is also named the Hans Christian Andersen Award, the most relevant award of children’s literature, also known as the Nobel Prize for children’s literature The tale “The Ugly Duckling” works the idea that there is a place that is right for us. In an offspring of beautiful ducklings, one and just one was too big, too clumsy and too ugly. Andersen, then, ask us to consider that “having being born in a duck yard is irrelevant, when one has come from swan’s egg”. The original name of the tale is “Den grimme Ælling” and it was first published in 1843.Three-time Caldecott Honor artist and four-time winner of the Coretta Scott King Award, Jerry Pinkney doesn’t disappoint with this lovely, old-fashioned, richly textured watercolor adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Ugly Duckling. The mother duck knew from the very beginning that one of her babies would be different from the rest… the sixth egg was large and oddly shaped. When it finally hatches that summer, she thinks the “monstrous big duckling” must be a turkey chick! Other ducks are appalled by the ugly duckling, and he is chased, pecked, and kicked aside. When he can’t stand it anymore, he runs away from the pond, eventually taking refuge in the warm cottage of an old woman with a cat and a hen. Missing the delicious feeling of the water too much to stay, however, he heads out again into the wide, increasingly cold autumn world. One day, he heard a sound of whirring wings, and up in the air he saw a flock of birds flying high. They were as bright as the snow that had fallen during the night, and their long necks were stretched southward. Oh, if only he could go with them! But what sort of companion could he be to those beautiful beings?” At last, after a hard, cold winter–and plenty of the kind of adventures no one really wants to have–the duckling sees the same flock of birds he’d seen in the sky so many months ago. He decides he will follow them, somewhat dramatically preferring to be killed by them rather than suffer any more “cold and hunger and cruelty.” Much to his surprise, they welcome him! And when he looks for his dull, awkward reflection in the water, he sees a beautiful swan instead. Children who feel ostracized, even for the tiniest of differences, may shed a few sympathetic tears for the ugly duckling. And no doubt, it was Andersen’s wish to give them the hope of one day finding their own peaceful place. (Ages 3 to 9) –Karin Snelson