Being a Platypus Isn't So Bad: New Children's Book Teaches the Importance of Accepting Your Appearance

Sally the platypus, like many of us, is not happy with how she looks and she imagines being someone who looks more like her friends. "I don't like being a platypus! The kids at school sometimes make fun of me because of the way I look!" she tells her dad one day.


Her friends -- Chrissie the duck, Brian the beaver and Karen the koala -- have features she likes more than her strange-looking long bill and funny webbed feet and odd pouch on her tummy.


In Sherri L. Edwards' new children's book, "Sally the Platypus" (published by AuthorHouse), Sally discovers, when she acquires attributes like her friends', that she really kind of likes herself just the way she is. Because many children struggle with their own identity, the message in "Sally the Platypus" is to appreciate your own talents, strengths and unique abilities and that it may be easier than you think to find happiness with who you are:


Sally waddled to her room and soon fell fast asleep. She woke the next morning, rubbed her eyes, stretched, and rolled over -- and realized she was not a duck anymore. She got up and went over to the mirror to find her duckbill was gone -- but now she had two super-long teeth instead.


She looked at her feet and saw there were not two, but four, and her tail and fur was back.


She hurried down to breakfast and once again, her mom was making shrimp pancakes. Sally pulled out her chair and sat down beside her dad, who was once again reading the morning paper.


"Daddy, do you notice anything different about me this morning?" Sally asked.


"Sure, you look like my Sally girl," Henry responded.


"You say that all the time, Dad. I'm serious! Do you see something different about me?"


"Yes, you changed a little; why do you ask? Is it because you look like a beaver?" he asked.


"Yes, look at me!" Sally said.


"Being a beaver might not be so bad," Henry said.


"I guess not; after all, I was a duck yesterday and hated it, so maybe I will like being a beaver now," Sally explained.


Sherri L. Edwards is a successful published author of poetry and a parent who has observed her own children address their individuality. "Sally the Platypus" is her first book. "I wanted to write books based on issues that adolescents deal with, with the anticipation that it will assist them to understand themselves. I hope that all my readers obtain the same meaning as I embrace when I write them," she says.