Why Ducks Sleep on One Leg by Sherry Garland

Title: Why Ducks Sleep on One Leg
Author: Sherry Garland
Illustrators: Jean and Mou-Sien Tseng
Ages: 3-8
Scholastic

Why Ducks Sleep on One Leg is typically a vietnamese cultured book. The book offers a lot of cultural intel and interesting facts! The story begins by announcing the leader of the "world", Ngoc Hoang, the Jade Emperor.
Meanwhile, this leader made a mistake when creating three little ducks. The ducks were each born with one leg a piece. Throughout the story Sherry Garland expresses the struggles the three ducks are put through, such as struggling to swim to catch fish, or to get to worms fast enough, and water buffalo stepping on them because they can't get out of the way fast enough. All of this is happening because the ducks were minus a leg each.
The three sibling ducks decided they had had enough and they were going to write the Jade Emperor a letter to ask to receive their second legs so they could have a better chance at surviving. They even have trouble with that so they end up asking a hen, and then they take it to a friend of the Jade Emperors so that he can pass it along, but he denies.
Fortunately enough, the ducks overheard the Jade Emperors friend having a conversation about throwing out three legs. The ducks did not know what kind of legs they were, but they heard three and they heard legs, and they wanted them. So they asked for those legs and it turned out that they were golden legs being thrown out! The Jade Emperors friend, Thanh-Hoang, agreed to giving the ducks the three legs so they could have two a piece at last. The gold legs were beautiful and the ducks get warned to be careful with them because they could get stollen. While the ducks wear the perfectly fitted legs on themselves, they show them off proudly. The ducks can finally swim and run and eat all they can catch up to, like any other duck around! The story ends with the ducks being extremely happy with their lives and they end the big day by going to sleep and tucking their gold leg underneath so no one will try to steal them in the night!

This story is precious. I think this book would be a fun interactive class read aloud because the students would enjoy the characters in the book and the details provided. It could also provide a pretty awesome awareness that everybody is different, and that its okay to be different. The ducks wore the gold legs PROUD. People are different in their own ways, and I think that is something children need to learn to accept at a young age.