Author Impact:
Hans Christian
Andersen's Childhood
The old stories are the best
stories. And often, the most beloved of children's stories are sweeter a few
years down the road, the second time around. The older child, approaching the
teen years, is growing in depth of understanding, and benefits from
increasingly-longer glimpses into the realities of adult life.
Later grade school and the
middle-school years are a great time to revisit children's classics, and this
time, to go into more depth about the truths that they reveal.
For example, did you know that the
great children's author Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) had a very tragic childhood
and youth? Yet he is credited with writing some of the greatest fairy tales of
all time.
Scroll down to see his long list of
stories in chronological order. You can download and read most of them to your
child:
http://hca.gilead.org.il/
Andersen's self-concept was that he
was an unattractive "geek." See his picture:
Can you see how such a person might
create the beloved story, "The Ugly Duckling"? That would be a good story to
read to your child, and show this picture to talk about acceptance and real
beauty.
He grew up very poor: his father was
a shoemaker and his mother was a washerwoman. His father died when Andersen was
very young, leaving him at the mercy of others, and often hungry with few
clothes against the cold Danish winter. You can see how that poverty must have
inspired "The Little Match-Seller," about the little street girl who fantasized
what it would be like to be warm and fed each time she struck a match.
Andersen's father had read to him
constantly in an effort to equip him for higher learning and a better life, and
fortunately, Andersen had a beautiful singing voice. A rich man paid his way to
go to a special school where he could sing in a choir, and he had to be happy
about that. However, historians believe that the headmaster of that school
abused Andersen, so there was a lot of pain mixed in with the opportunity. It
is probable that this experience led to "The Nightengale," about the caged bird
too sad to sing despite living in the opulence of the Chinese emperor's palace.
The more you learn about Andersen's
life, the more you can see it coming alive in his stories. As you and your
child explore more authors, you will see how the old line is true - art
imitates life!
The 200th anniversary of
Andersen's birth in Denmark was celebrated in 2005 - see the website, www.dr.dk/hca/en/forside
