Tales from Hans Christian Andersen

The purpose of this book is to entertain and provide the reader with an author’s critique of each of the thirteen tales. I enjoyed the many stories that were compiled in this book and most notably did so with the help of the author’s structure/organization of the stories and the illustrations. Before a story is introduced, the author includes the history and review of the story, giving the reader background knowledge to help them better understand the story. For example, the story The Tinderbox was a story “plucked from the Arabian Nights, from Grimm, and from other familiar folklore, Aladdin, Ali Baba,” etc. The reader also gets a chance to look at the illustration, title, and review of the authors critique before reading the show more story. The illustrations help reinforce the major events that are taking place in the stories. For example, in the story Thumbelina we notice that there is an illustration from the time she was born (tulip picture), from the time a toad, beetle, and mouse try to kidnap her. In the story The Emperor’s New Clothes, the illustration of the emperor (pg. 53) looking at himself in the mirror naked reinforce the plot that there are two tricksters that try to convince the emperor that if he can’t see his close then he is a fool. show less