The Ugly Five

I cannot understand what is the point of this book and why most of the people gave it an high score.This book is about groups of animal that the other animals find ugly and unattractive. The "ugly" animals stick together isolated from the rest of the animals and the only ones who can loves them or find them unique or not ugly are thier children (!)The children will always love thier parents and will not find them uglyWhat is the moral of this story?? What is it suppose to teach the children that will read it?We loves Julia's stories but we will skip this one

This is a book about strangeness and perspectives: 5 animals (no spoiler there) describe themselves in quite good detail (good vocabulary for my EFL young Learners) only to find at the end - (little) spoiler alert now - that there are some creatures who truly appreciate them the way they are. Besides the rich lexicon, I like the fact that there is no repetition of words but rather synonyms and a musical stanza that always includes new content related to the topic of difference and being bizarre but not necessarily ostracized. Oh, and the last pages have very informative lists of savanna animals. My 3-year-old loves it!

Horrible in my opinion. I read it once and put it in the recycling - didn't even want to give it away. It seems quite a mean story and negative language. Generally a fan of the author but not this one. My partner didn't like it either.

I love most Julia Donaldson stories but not this one. It teaches the concept of certain animals being ugly, which is not something I want my small child to learn or repeat. Got rid of the book.

There are 2 messages this book actually sends:1) even this duo can have a bad book, think of this on a bad day;2) it is still selling!Speaking seriously, the rhymes and the pictures are very repetitive, probably deadlines were pressing? This is not a book with a positive message or much reassuring. It can reduce you to tears as it is too realistic: everyone judges you, you can be ok with it and only your kids will see you for what you are but once they grow, they'll have to learn your pain. Thank you for making some people think, but those who should have to stop in their tracks and ponder will not be buying books of this sort (or will turn the story into something else). Not much liked or understood by kids either.

My daughter loves this book, she’s 2 and a half and I sing it to her. We had borrowed it from our local library, and I bought this book as she didn’t want to give the library copy back. I would however say, the essence of the book is about how ugly these animals are, but their children love them and think they are beautiful. If I’m being PC I’d say all but the last page focuses on the animals being disliked due to their looks, and this really isn’t a good message:-(

I love reading earlier Julia Donaldson books to my children. We have quite a few. I love the words that rhyme and the stories and the beautiful drawings from Axel. The ugly five was an absolute disapointment. Seems she wrote this quickly just to earn money as people would buy because of hwr previous books. Dont buy this one.

The name of the book made me wary, but the story behind this is actually a great message for kids. It goes on about all the flaws for the animals, and how ugly those flaws make them, but ends with their children telling them everything they love about them and how beautiful they really are. My daughter is only 3, but understood that calling them ugly wasn’t kind. It’s another one with rhymes and songs, it’s become a firm favourite!