Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales

The premise of this collection of Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales was quite cute. It intertwined one of Andersen's well-known fairy tales, that of the Sandman, with the other tales by Andersen that the author chose. She introduced the Sandman by saying that "no one in the world knows as many stories as the Sandman" (p. 9) and then had the Sandman share seven "very fine stories" (p. 9) - one for each night of the week - with a little boy named Hjalmar. These seven stories were: "The Emperor's New Clothes", "The Princess and the Pea", "The Tinderbox", "The Rose Tree Regiment", "The Naughty Boy", "The Jumpers", and "The Little Match Girl". 

Despite having been a lover of fairy tales and princess stories since childhood, I had only heard of two of the stories included in this collection. Some of them were quite obscure and tended towards the bizarre, such as "The Rose Tree Regiment" in which the citizens of the rose tree, which are eventually revealed to be leaf lice, bemoan that humans try to wash them with soap and ask a little girl to imagine if she had to live in fear of being washed.

With his extensive collection of fairy tales including very popular ones such as "The Little Mermaid", "The Ugly Duckling", and "Thumbelina", just to name a few, I have to wonder why the author chose the ones that she did. I especially questioned her choice of order because the final story was "The Little Match Girl" in which the main character dies at the end. Despite the fact that the little girl's grandmother came down from heaven and "picked the little girl up in her arms [and took her] to the place where there is no cold or hunger or pain" (p. 65), it did not override the morose overtones of the story. The final paragraph of the story, and therefore the final paragraph of the book as well, began with, "The little girl was found in the corner between the two houses in the cold light of dawn. Her cheeks were red and there was a smile on her lips, but she was dead, frozen to death..." (p. 65). 

This fairy tale collection was the 1990 winner of the Hans Christian Andersen Medaille for illustration. Hans Christian Andersen Medailles are presented every other year by the International Board on Books for Young People to "a living author and illustrator whose complete works have made a lasting contribution to children's literature" (IBBY, 2010). The illustrations in this collection were large, captivating watercolors with muted colors and characters with whimsical expressions that practically jumped off the pages. 

It was very obvious to me why this author/illustrator merited the award. My only complaint is that I wished there were more of them, not only because of their beauty but also because of their scarcity, for sometimes there would be as many as three solid pages of text between illustrations).

As a result of the sometimes gloomy overtones, the fact that the stories were quite wordy, and the fairly spaced out illustrations, I would recommend this fairy tale collection for older elementary students. I believe that younger children might lose focus while listening to some of the longer stories whereas older children could use their imaginations to create vivid mental pictures of the tales. I also think that older children could benefit from comparing and contrasting other fairy tales from around the world with Hans Christian Andersen's. Finally, I learned that Andersen could serve as an inspiration to pursue their dreams despite obstacles, because it is widely believed that he was dyslexic.