The Sissy Duckling

Authors: Harvey Fierstein
Illustrator: Henry Cole
Publisher and date of publication: Aladdin Paperbacks, 2005
Genre: Picture Book, Multicultural
Grade Level: K-3

The Sissy Duckling is a story about a young duck named Elmer. Elmer is a very special and unique duck. Unlike most boy ducks Elmer likes to bake cookies, build sand castles, put on puppet shows, paint and things like that. He never wishes to participate in games like football or baseball and he mostly plays with girls or by himself. One day Papa Duck decided it was time for Elmer to learn how to play baseball, if he didn’t Papa Duck said he will never make it in the world. Elmer suggested that he put on the half time show instead but Papa was not pleased. When it came time to play baseball, Elmer was not good. He struck out three times and when they told him he was out Elmer skipped away happily. Later that night Elmer overheard Mama and Papa duck talking about how all the boys at the baseball field called Elmer a sissy. Elmer asked his mama was a sissy was and she said, “It is a cruel way of saying that you don’t do things the way others think you should”. Mama just went on telling Elmer how he was special and would one day amaze them all. The next day at school Drake Duckling the bully said that there were no sissy’s allowed in his school. Elmer simply said you’re just angry because I do things differently and one day I will amaze you all. Drake continued to call Elmer a sissy. After class Drake was waiting for Elmer because he wanted to fight. Elmer ran all the way home and hid under his bed. Later that night Elmer heard something disturbing. He heard papa duck calling him a sissy because he ran away instead of staying and fighting. Papa then said Elmer was no son of his because he didn’t act like he wanted him to. Elmer packed up his things and ran away. Elmer found a new home in the forest. With all his skills he fixed his place up nice. When it was time for the ducks to fly south for the winter, Elmer stayed behind. Shortly after they left he discovered that a hunter had shot down his papa. Elmer took papa back to his home and nursed him back to health. At first papa was mad because no duck had ever survived the winter. However, Elmer and papa spent the entire winter getting to know each other and papa soon realized how special Elmer was. When the other ducks returned home from the south papa duck told everyone what Elmer had done. Elmer became their hero. Even Drake the bully gave him a high five and told Elmer that he had changed. Over the years Elmer soon learned that there were lots of other ducks in the world just like him and that he wasn’t so different but he would always be special.

I absolutely love this book. There are so many wonderful education themes to address with your students. Elmer Duckling is a wonderful, strong and brave character that you can not help but to fall in love with him. I know that this book is to help address the issue of being gay to elementary students but I would suggest to not focus only on that aspect. This book can serve as a great basis to begin talking with younger children about differences among each other, bullying and things like that. As you get into the older grades like second and third, this book opens up great opportunity to talk about gender differences, bullying in detail and much more. It begins to address the issues of fitting in and not fitting in, fighting and even relationships with parents.I think that so many people read this book and automatically think that it has to used to discuss gender issues or bullying however, there are so many things going on in this book that children face on a daily basis. It is easy to talk about bullying but what about those who are being bullied. It is important to focus on teaching our students how to cope with emotions that may make them feel alone or left out. We need to teach them how to cope with the fact that they may be a little different but in nothing but great ways are they different. Relationships are another big topic in this book. As teachers we could examine the relationship between Elmer duckling, mama duck and papa duck. There is so much going on inside that home that Elmer needs to learn to deal with. I don’t doubt that there will be students in my class that have parents at home who downgrade them. It is my job to help them develop ways to communicate to their parents and deal with home situations, or at least let them know that there are people who can help. The illustrations in the book are wonderful. They convey so much emotion that it is easy to connect not only with the characters but the story that the author is trying to portray. I read in an article that the illustrator purposely uses a lot of pink in the story to address the whole "gay" issue. However I will be quite honest in saying that I never really even noticed it. I am not saying this is good or bad but I just didn't stick out enough for it to make a difference either way in the way I read the book. I think your students will enjoy reading this book and I hope you do to.

In the classroom there are lots of things you could do. FIrst of all you could do a unit on bullying. Many children need to learn the in's and out's of what it is and how they should go about reporting bullying. This could easily be done with little skits for the students to do. Another activity that I really liked was one where you just focus on the differences of the students. I think that as a teacher we should point out differences among everything possible. Whether people do or do not have pets and what kind, favorite colors, different sports people like to play, favorite television shows, religion, culture, eye color, height, shoe size and so much more. Students need to learn and realize that they are each a unique blueprint and all have special and unique abilities. This topic is not only good for helping students to learn to accept one another but to respect and appreciate their self. The game you would play is called "Simon Say's Who Are You?" The object of the game is for you to call out things like:
- Simon Says “everyone with brown eyes, stand up.”
- Simon Says “Everyone who has a dog as a pet jump on your right foot.”
- Simon Says “Everyone whose favorite sport is basketball, put your left hand on your head.”
- Simon Says “everyone who speaks more than one language, turning circles.”
At the end of the game have the student's name one thing that they learned about another classmate that they didn't know before. Well these are just some suggestions there are many other wonderful things that you can do with a book like "The Sissy Duckling."
Here are two great sites all about bullying. The first one has the Simon Says game on it:
http://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/lesson/lesson191.shtml

http://www.goodcharacter.com/GROARK/Bullying.html