Anyone who is a fan of Andersen's fairy tales should enjoy reading this detailed but easy to understand biography of his life. While he is best known for his fairy tales, this book discusses some of his lesser known novels and travel books as well as his personal background information. It may be too hard for young children to read but adolescents and adults should be able to enjoy this informative book about a beloved writer. Adolescents may be interested in reading about all of Andersen's unrequited loves as well as his run-ins with a sadistic, cruel schoolmaster. I found this book to be very informative and it has certainly whet my appetite for reading some of Andersen's novels and travelogues.

Biographies of authors always make good books for those who have already read them. Of course an easily accessible story teller like Han Christian Andersen is popular with both kids and their parents and rightly elevated into a cultural mascot by his country cousins,Danes. I spotted this well written book in an obscure corner labeled "Teaching aids" next to the Children's Books Section in the local Border's Books Store. Having visited and stayed in Denmark recently I was familiar with almost all the landmarks that were mentioned and hence could enjoy it better. It was interesting to note that he could not visit his mother in Odense for lack of money to pay the fare for ferry, while today a tourist takes less than an hour by high speed train to zoom there to visit Han Andersen's Childhood Home (preserved as a museum) from Copenhagen.Though his homosexuality recieves some sensitive appraisal that is not the focus of this biography. I was also amused to note the attempt of Danish establishment to claim this icon of Danish culture as one of their own by denying him his working class roots and floating rumours of him, being the illegitimate child of some unmarried Royal Princess !! Royal blood or no royal blood; timeless stories written by this master story teller of nineteenth century will continue to instill a reading habit in many boys and girls for centuries. This book certainly serves as a window into the times and circumstances of this creative genius who had his share of tyrannical teachers and devoted friends. His attempts to eke out a lunch or dinner invitation from wellwishers/friends to save on scholarship money reminded me the circumstances under which many poor South Indian Brahmin boys used to study when they were taking their meals in different households on different days of a week by turns out of sheer goodwill and/or pity that they could muster from their own compatriates. If one likes to read about books and authors another one that immediately comes to mind is: The Art of Fiction : An Introduction to Ten Novels and Their Authors by W. Somerset Maugham.

My son found this book in the school library two years ago and we loved it. It was tattered and torn....a barnyard story that spreads around town ending up back where it began - in the hen's house,with a surprise ending. It depicts the "human quality" of perception and how we all have a different version of the same experience. "I almost saw it with my own eyes!" It is a humorous tale that shouldn't be missed. I had forgotten the title and am delighted to have found it here!

Have you ever felt intrigued by the painfully weird paths Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales follow? Dr. Lederer explicates the text and offers insights that assist the reader, the teacher, and the lonely searcher in all of us

Many authors and illustrators have tried to tell this story before, but this particular book is a treasure for any 6 to 9 year old to have in her collection of classic fairy tales. Each page of artwork should be a painting - they are so stunning and magical. This version follows the Hans Christian Andersen version of the famous tale, not the Disney movie. Therefore, the Little Mermaid goes up to heaven in the end, which may bother some preschoolers. The reading level is at about the 2nd grade level. A great book to share at story-time with an early reader, as the pictures will motivate them to try and read it.

Every now and then some well-meaning person decapitates the statue of the little mermaid in Denmark. There is no need for them to bother.

What worries people about Hans Anderson's story of the little mermaid is the image of a woman who is so desperate for love that she'll give up the use of her voice and will walk on feet that hurt as if knives were going through them. Having found the man she loves, she'll step aside and evaporate rather than harm her beloved. Its' an image of self-sacrifice that many women find repugnant.

However I don't think the story is really about women being self-sacrificing at all. Instead it's about how much Hans Anderson himself wanted to be loved.

Anderson was ugly - comically ugly and clumsy. This, combined with his poverty, meant that for much of his early life, he was an outsider who, rather like another of his creations, the little matchgirl, was always looking in at the happy, comfortable scenes of the lives of others but feeling only the cold winds of his own solitude.

Convinced that he was meant to do something great - he even considered being a ballet dancer! - he hung around famous people trying to find encouragement, direction and patronage. They amused themselves at his expense but failed to notice that he was almost starving and had clothes that were too small and in rags. Possibly the image of the knives in the feet of the mermaid arose from his experience of wearing ill-fitting shoes during the frozen Danish winters.

Eventually, after returning to school to learn to read and write properly, he found his voice and wrote his stories. However, he didn't have the courage to pursue the woman that he loved and, though she may well have responded to him, he lost her to another. Tormented by loneliness, he lived without the love he craved.

I believe that the image of the little mermaid represents his emotions. Perhaps he felt at times as if he would gladly trade in his own hard-won powers of self-expression (just as the mermaid traded in her voice) if only he could be loved. And perhaps, when Anderson's beloved married another, he felt as if his soul had drifted away into the ether, as the little mermaid's does at the end of the story.

Each of us has a deep, secret yearning to see our own image reflected in the affectionate eyes of another. His story is not meant to be a prescription for how women should behave but is really a series of poetic images that express how strong within us all the desire for love can be.

Children may enjoy a biography of Anderson written by Ruth Saunders but there are many others written for adults about this complex, courageous and sad man.

I love all of Dom Deloise's books, but this one is my favorite. It is such a sweet story that has a "message". Don't you just love children's stories that have a message. The illustrations in this book are beautiful and captivates my 4 yr old daughter.

A wonderful telling of two beautiful storied, narrated well by Jaclyn Smith. There is classical music in the background, and the stories are told in full. Almost an hour from start to finish. We now want to own all of Dove Kids tapes!

Whoever reviewed this book in "editorial" needs to have their eyes examined. Grotesque watercolors? Inept humor? What are they talking about? This is the FIRST version of the Tinderbox by H.C. Anderson, one of my favorite fairy tales that I've really found to be pleasing. The three dogs with humoungous eyes are delightfully fantastic, and the hero and heroine well rendered. The more bloodthirsty and amoral elements of the tale are changed (ie: the soldier doesn't lop off the witch's head but instead traps her in a deep pit) to its improvement, IMHO. Warhola's watercolors are cheerful, fairly realistic, quite appropriate for the lighthearted and rambunctious story.
A great introduction to an exuberant tale for the young, especially for boys. It's not a wimpy fairytale by any means, even if there is a princess and kissing at the end. Warhola and Thompson do a commendable job. Should be reprinted!

Anastasia Little, a native of Denmark, has trans-lated for the first time Andersen's accounts of his travels in Europe and the Mediterranean, meeting a fascinating and colorful cast of characters under circumstanceds which seem like another world to a reader today. a book full of unexpected oddities and beautiful descriptions which gives us Andersen in a new role as a social historian of arevolutionary epoch as Europe entered the industrial age and life began to change at a much more rapid pace. But all this is coincidental to the sheer enjoyment of discovering Andersden himself as a person telling a different kind of story, or rather many stories of a world that was his own reality.