Author
Hans Christian Andersen
5 books here
Thumbelina
Picture book · ages 4–8 · 640L · 2010
Andersen's original fairy tale holds up—Thumbelina's quiet refusal of predetermined futures feels subversive for a 19th-century story, and the prose (in translation) is genuinely beautiful.
Princess and the Pea
Picture book · ages 4–8 · 650L · 2005
Andersen's wit surfaces in the test-as-proof premise; this 2005 illustrated edition leans gently whimsical without oversweetening the fairy tale's dry humor about what royalty really means.
La Petite Sirene (French Well Loved Tales)
Picture book · ages 5–9 · 550L · 2020
Andersen's original — dark, yearning, and structurally heartbreaking — illustrated beautifully but genuinely sad; a corrective to the Disney version that respects children's capacity for melancholy.
Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales
Picture book · ages 5–9 · 620L · 1978
Andersen's originals hit different than Disney — darker, more bittersweet, genuinely unsettling in places, but the emotional honesty and odd beauty stick with kids for years.
The Ugly Duckling
Picture book · ages 4–8 · 520L · 1985
A fairy-tale anchor for the identity-and-belonging conversation; the peer rejection stings genuinely, but the transformation lands without being saccharine.