Wording in a Dick King Smith book? Ok or not ok?

[Barreleyefish]

I bought the books All Pigs Are Beautiful from a charity shop yesterday for 3 year old DGD. Sweet, informative, lovely illustrations. On the last page it reads ‘People can be good-looking or just ordinary looking or plain ugly. But all pigs are beautiful.’ Am sure DGD will ask what ugly is as she’s interested in new words at the moment. It doesn’t seem ok at all to put the idea into her head that some people are ugly or even that this is what the author thinks. Is there a way round this I’ve not thought of or would you take an otherwise lovely book back to the charity shop?

Just change the word. I edit what I'm reading sometimes with mine although I did bin a version of the little mermaid lol.

I think you need to get a grip.

don't take it back!!!!! FFS.

Just don't read that bit if it bothers you.

It’s getting harder to do that as she can now read simple words and looks at the page being read so would know if wording has been changed Jaxtellerswife.

Why are you happy teaching her the word "Beautiful" and yet not the word "Ugly"?

It's like teaching the word "Hot" but not the word "Cold". Concepts have opposites. It's in their nature. It's not like you have to get out a picture of Jessica Alba and Theresa May and say "This woman is beautiful, and this woman is ugly" or anything. Just say "We call something beautiful when we like how it looks, and we call something ugly when we don't like how it looks."

Not sure if you've come across fairy tales OP but they pretty much all have someone ugly in them.

Sethis that’s a great way to explain it. Thank you.

I prefer...

“If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until you can hardly bear to look at it.

A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts it will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.”
― Roald Dahl, The Twits

I think you may be over thinking this!

LivinginPoppyLand that’s a far better explanation of ‘ugly’ than just a blanket judgement that some people are just plain ugly which is in this book.

CalamityJane overthinking is one of my specialist subjects.

Sethis That’s not nice to say about Theresa May!

OP, with respect you’re being a bit silly. Change the word or explain it in a sensitive way.

The thing is, some people are ugly. The message you need to send to your child is that how you look doesn't have any impact on how nice/clever/interesting you are.

A bit off topic but this reminds me that my late mum ran a book shop and was also prone to getting her words mixed up.On one memorable occasion she referred to him as 'King Dick Smith'

Sorry - as you were...

Also, I think it's fine to read them these bits and go: 'Although I don't think that's true/right' and, if they ask, elaborate as to why. There's nothing wrong with introducing the concept of critical thinking, even when they're really young. And she's likely to be far more influenced by what you think than by what the writer does.

I am a paid up memeber of the over thinking club. I use beautiful and ugly to describe personalities. So we were describing homophobes and called them ugly. I was talking about a kindly neighbour who is a bloke in his 70’s I described him as beautiful. Yes, I know I’m using it differently from the rest of the world but my child is “different” looking. People with his condition are called ugly and I want to take the heat out the word for him. It’s not about what you see it’s about who you are. Basically what rold dhal said.

Or Roald Dahl even. Thanks auto correct.

Old stories are the best. People are ugly (and fat!!) chickens get massacred by foxes, wolves eat grandmothers... I don't believe any of it affects children adversely. If she's otherwise well rounded and brought up to be kind to others she will cope with this.

musicmaiden and Iamtheworst these are good ways of approaching interpretations of beautiful and ugly. My biggest concern was not to discuss it in a way that might lead her to start calling other people ugly when describing how they look.

King Dick Smith sounds very grand DareDevil 😀.