Review: Full of hidden gems.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 08 15, 2013
My childhood was a scam!!! My mother never read these to me when I was little. So all I knew was the Disneyfied version. Now an adult, I have been studying all sorts of fables on my own - Charles Perrault, the Grimm Brothers and Aesop. Having read all of them, I must say that Hans Christian Anderson beats them all in spades. "The Little Mermaid" and the other classics are so much better in writing than they are on screen, as is so often the case.Primarily, it's his writing style; he doesn't pretend that children are stupid, he writes using fine language, which makes reading it enjoyable for even adults. Now I know that they taught children back in the day to read straight from the King James version of the Bible. If only we had such high standards today!!! So his choice of words can be verbose. But it's not just that. Anderson also combines vivid imagery with a story that's well-paced. The stories are full of details. That's a winning combination.Sure, there are some stories that are dull and not worth reading. But there are also hidden gems. To anyone who's lost a child to death, "The Angel", for example, would be a reassuring read. "The Shepherdess and the Sheep" is also quite endearing.