What is the moral of The Ugly Duckling?

What that actually means

This story is often shortened to the idea that the ugly duckling becomes beautiful, which misses what actually happens. He does not decide to fly at the swans because he thinks he might be one. He does it because he would rather be killed by something beautiful than survive another winter being pecked. The change in him is not that he becomes handsome. It is that he stops being willing to go on as he was, and the discovery about what he is comes afterwards, as a surprise, and he is not in the least proud of it.

What happens in the story

A large grey bird hatches in a duckyard and is bitten, pecked and pushed about until he leaves. He survives a marsh, a very opinionated cat and hen, and a winter that nearly kills him. At the end he flies at a flock of swans expecting to be killed for daring to come near, and they welcome him, and only then does he look down and see what he is.

Questions to ask afterwards

The lesson lands better when a child works it out themselves.

1. The mother duck defends him at first and gives up by the autumn. Why do you think she changes?
2. The cat and the hen are certain they are right. How do they decide what is sensible?
3. He flies at the swans expecting to be killed. Why does he do it anyway?
4. Does anything about the duckling actually change, apart from how he looks?
5. Is there a difference between being told to fit in and being helped to belong?