Theme and Variation Upon a Piece by Hans Christian Andersen: Ugly by Donna Jo Napoli

Composers have done it for centuries, taking a theme from a masterwork and fashioning new expressions around it, and Donna Jo Napoli's Ugly does the same with Andersen's most famous short story, "The Ugly Duckling." To ring a real change upon Andersen's plot line, Napoli moves the story from the Danish countryside to Tasmania, which gives her much, er, latitude in choosing exotic animals with which to work out the theme of the ugly cast-out hatchling whose suffering enables him to grow into great beauty.

Hatched from an unfortunately large and late green egg, Ugly is given his name by the supercilious waterfowl whose cruel abuse forces his loving mother, a Pacific black duck, and his sibling ducklings to drive him away from their home on Dove Lake. Like Andersen's duckling, Ugly wanders the countryside, befriended first by a wallaby, who gives him a lift on his back, and then a wombat, with whom he shares a winter burrow. As the weather grows cold, Ugly lives with a native Tasmanian crone and her hen and cat, briefly with a family who put him out after he wrecks their larder, and a couple of adolescent ganders who try to teach him the ways of waterfowl machismo and wind up getting shot by hunters before his eyes. Finally he meets up with a golden possum who shares her tree hollow and gives him her baby to carry while she forages in the treetops. As his mother had counseled, he uses his own intelligence and makes new friends as he wanders, learning something from each one. Still, Ugly is unsatisfied and unfulfilled and longs for the companionship of his own kind.

As in Andersen's story, Ugly eventually comes to a pond where a migrating lamentation (flock) of Australian black swans has just landed and is recognized by the reigning cob as a yearling swan. Ugly also catches the eye of a beautiful young pen named Marvelous, and the two take flight together as he migrates with the flock to Dove Lake, his birthplace and the summer nesting grounds of the swans.

His mother duck quickly recognizes him and puts his heart at ease. "A sweet egg hatched a sweet bird. Go live a good swan life."

Napoli scores this variation with great skill, not a little humor, and a great deal of secondary information about wildlife down under. Children familiar with the Andersen story will love to watch the parallels unfold, and those unfamiliar with the classic version will find the theme of the unattractive, abused child who grows up wise and beautiful just as satisfying in this modern version.

Ugly is a 2008-2009 Tennessee State Children's Choice Book Award nominee.