Stories for Girls

Stories for Girls by Hans Christian AndersenToday, over a century and a quarter after his death, Hans Christian Andersen remains perhaps the world's most beloved author of children's stories. This talented Danish writer's tales have been translated into dozens of languages and have become the theme for major motion pictures. This book contains the best stores in which a young girl or woman plays the key role. Among its fourteen tales are such classics as "The Little Mermaid," "Thumbelina," and "The Little Match Girl." Ever so gently, they teach growing girls the value of courage, imagination, humor, kindness, faith and love. In adapting these stories for "twentieth-first century children," the editor has respected Andersen's wisdom about what children need and what they can understand. The sometimes stilted language of old translations has been replaced by more modern phrasing. But "adapted" doesn't mean the stories have been trivialized. Andersen's little mermaid remains as he created her, a courageous and complex young woman with much more on her mind than simply catching a rich husband. Each story opens with a brief summary of its plot and an age rating. Keeping in mind that story time is often bed time, the longer stories have been broken into sections. For instance, "The Little Mermaid," which might take over an hour to read, is divided into four parts.