The 3 best books by Hans Christian Andersen

There was a time when the story was an exclusively children's genre. Gender specificity perhaps began with Charles Perrault, was extended with the task of compiling the popular heritage of the Brothers Grimm and reached its maximum splendor with Hans Christian Andersen.

This beginning of the post may be a daring synthesis that, however, establishes a clear chronology in the history of children's stories.

But the most curious thing of all is that those children of many generations and places who grew up in the shelter of stories by one or the other narrators, ended up composing an imaginary that survives in mature age, some references on morality, good and evil. , overcoming adversity and longing for childhood paradise.

With this I do not mean to say that later and current storytellers do not have their merit when they carry out this translation of the story-telling work into a narrative for adults, it never hurts to return to each person's reading origins in their necessary brief format. In fact, the definition of a story does not refer to its childish nature, but rather to its brief nature and its usual format.

But it is fair to recognize the cradle of everything. And it is more fair to evoke Andersen as the writer who took up the baton of the story as the most brilliant of his own creation to enlighten the little ones about the most diverse aspects of reality with the easy understanding of the short story and adjusted to understanding of the budding social human ...

Top 3 Recommended Short Stories By Hans Christian Andersen

The Tin Soldier

One of those stories that I liked the most when I read as a child was this one about the soldier crippled due to lack of raw materials in his manufacture and in love with the most beautiful ballerina of all the toys in the house.

A touching story that extends its meaning to love in adversity, overcoming limitations, cruelty but also humor. An emotional synthesis of what appears in the lives of adults, adjusted to the necessary naive perspective of childhood.

The symbol of the soldier always resembled my firm will, that soldier that every child must begin to build on his being in order to bear what comes.

The emotional point of tragedy, after the fascinating journey of the soldier, points to romantic love and a kind of magic over the inanimate ...

The Tin Soldier

The emperor's new suit

One of the children's stories that has the greatest significance in adulthood is this one that narrates the adventures of the emperor in search of the ideal couturier for his best suit.

As it happens in The Little Prince, the prism of childhood serves to strip (never better said in this case) symbols of maturity. The deception in which we can come to live, and which has now reached an exponential degree, becomes the basis for explaining how the king is completely confused about the best fabric for his suit, the most comfortable and pleasant to the touch.

The King is finally convinced of the great benefits of the fabric and goes out into the street completely naked. Everyone seems to succumb to the magnificence of the garment, until a child shows evidence of the trompe l'oeil...

The emperor's new suit

Thumbelina

In a similar vein to the story of Alice in Wonderland, this story presents us with a tiny girl, born from a wish of an infertile mother.

In a metaphor for that impossible pregnancy, Thumbelina ends up being born from a flower. Thumbelina's fabulous travels fire children's imaginations.

Its small size serves as an essential mimicry for children who see everything too high in the adult world.

An adventure in which the fact of being small does not prevent Thumbelina from fighting to get ahead among toads, butterflies, flowers and finally carve out a fantastic destiny. Interesting story to transport our little ones ...

Thumbelina
5/5 - (8 votes)

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