Last tutorial class, I was assigned to tell about my favourite childhood story in front of my class. So, the title of the story given is “The Ugly Duckling”. This story is about a small duckling that seems to look a bit different from other ducklings, and will become something else when it grows up later.About this story, I really like reading it because it is one of my favourite English stories ever since I was a kid. I never read much stories in English as I read a lot of Malay stories like Pak Pandir, Mat Jenin, Sang Kancil and so much more. The day that I start reading English stories is since I was standard 1 in my primary school. I could remember that there are many books in my standard 1 class which I can choose and read all of them during recess time.
Throughout this story, the main character of this story is the ugly duckling that is a bit different from other ducklings. At the beginning of the story, the ugly duckling is described as a strange and an ugly duckling, not like others as its body has grey feathers but not white. The other ducklings seem not like it at all because it looks very ugly. Then, it feels lonely and thinks that everybody around it hates it because of its difference. Consequently, it runs away from the place he belongs to and continues its journey. Throughout the journey, there are incidents that occur to it until it has to risk its life. In the end of the story, it realizes that it changes become the beautiful swan. In this story, I really like the ending part of the story because it shows the new beginning life of the ugly duckling as the beautiful swan.
The moral value can be seen clearly throughout this story is true happiness life is not an easiest way to find. From the whole story, we can see that the ugly duckling is not accepted and hated by Mother Duck and other ducklings because it is an ugly duckling but not same like them. So, it runs away from them and goes some other places to find the true of its life. At the end, he finally finds his true life when it becomes the beautiful swan and meets its friends with the same kind.
On the other hand, the plot of the story is simple and interesting for young readers. This story contains simple words and sentences in order to make young readers easy to read and understand the whole story.
Based on my past experience on this story, I think it is suitable for children as it shows how the main character of the story develops at the beginning until the end of the story and gives good moral values to children. By reading this book, children will teach them something valuable in their lives. Besides, it will make them think and imagine critically about the story that they have read.
