Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales: The Farm-Yard Cock and Weather-Cock:

This one is definitely one of the strange but clever ones by Andersen. As you can probably tell by the title it's about a Farm-Yard Cock and a Weather-Cock. It tell the story of how each cock acts from the other perspective and from the other animals and vegetables perspective too. I realise how weird it sounds to say vegetables perspective however if he can write about fingers, needles and snowmen in that way then why not vegetables. The Weather-Cock is highly placed but can't even make a sound. Everyone in the story favours the Farm-Yard Cock and (I can't believe I'm about to say this) I feel a bit sorry for the Weather-Cock. I honestly never thought that that would be a sentence I would ever say.
   As you will know if you read my blog all Andersen's stories have a moral and this one literally tell you it at the end. Which to be honest is a bit strange for Andersen to do. And what does the moral say?-"Better to crow than to be 'used up' and break off."
   Also, as I said in my other posts there are different illustrations at the start of each chapter that I want to share:

Thanks for reading and if you have any books you want me to review then put them in the comments and I'll get round to them as soon as possible. 

xxx

Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales: Ole Luk-Oie:

This one is one of the clever but still a bit strange stories by Andersen. It's about a small creature that knows the most stories in the world. He comes into people's houses and goes to the children. He squirts sweet milk into their eyes so they can't keep their eyes shut. Then he blows on their necks so their heads get heavy. This makes their parents take them to bed so he  can tell them his stories. He has two umbrellas and one of them has pictures on and this makes the good children have wonderful dreams. The other has nothing on it and it causes the bad children to have dull dreams and when they wake up they feel as if they have had no dreams at all. The main part of the story is the seven stories he tell this one boy over a week's time. I think out of the seen stories Ole Luk-Oie tell this child is the one he told on Tuesday because the scene he describes is beautiful. I won't tell you anything about the dreams because they are all completely different and are wonderful to read.
   The way Andersen sets out this story is different from the others because there are subtitles that tell which day of the week they're on. Normally, writers might have just done another paragraph and said the next day. I thought I might mention this because this might be the only one set out differently.
   I don't think I ever mentioned this but at the start of every story there is a little picture that takes place later in the story. I thought I should tell you and I'll edit my other posts and show you these pictures. Also, in some of the stories there is a colour plate and they are really beautiful so I'll do some pictures on them as well. When I finish editing my other post I'll put a link of my blog homepage (so you know) on all my social media sites. So here's the little image at the start:

That's all for this post thanks for reading and I'll see you next time. If you have any books you want me to read put them in the comments and I'll get round to them as soon as possible.

xxx

Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales: The Princess on the Pea:

I think everyone knows this story from when they were a kid however if you don't I'll explain. It's about a Prince that wants a real Princess for a wife so he searches the world for this Princess but can't find her. So here returns home to the King and Queen. Then there is a storm and somebody knocks at the door for shelter. This woman says she's a real Princess however the Queen gives her test without the Princess realising. The Queen puts a pea under 20 mattresses and 20 quilts and the Princess sleeps on it. If the Princess can feel the pea under all of this she is a real Princess. If you already know this story then you already know the ending however I won't spoil it for those who haven't.

The end of the story was a bit funny because it says that the pea was put into a museum and could still be seen now unless somebody had carried it off and that this was a true story. To me that made me laugh because it's so plain to see that the story is not real. Also, as a kid I always thought how the pea didn't get flattened by the 20 mattresses alone. Surly after around three it would have been flatted. I think I remember telling my friends this in Year 1 and they just looked at me like I had destroyed their house. Even as a kid I annoyed my friends with logic which I still do (sorryish to friends)

Thanks for reading and I'll see you next post. 

xxx

Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales: The Snow Man:

This is one of the very weird stories however by the title you would thinks it's just a nice winter story. It's actually about a snowman that has fallen in love with a stove. Don't worry that's not a spoiler by the way. It's quite a short story so I won't tell you anything else but I will tell you about my favourite character in the story. I haven't told you about his character yet even though he says the most in the story. My favourite character is the dog. It's quite clever how Andersen describes the life of the dog because it's what happen in those times and what sometimes happens now. It is a really short story and I don't want to ruin it for you so this might be a shorter post than usual.
    I think in the next few years they'll make this into one of those Christmas short films like the other snowman film. It'll be quite funny to see children watch as a snowman falls in love with an old stove or is that just me. It's quite an unusual story but it made me laugh a bit and I enjoyed it. Andersen's stories are really good when you want to read but you don't have the time because it'll take you about five minutes to finish just one of his stories.
   Here's the images from the start of the story:

Thanks for reading and if you have any books or posts you want me to do please put them in the comments and I'll do them as soon as possible.

xxx

Hans Christian Anderson's Fairy Tales: The Little Sea Maid:

As I said in my last post if you want to read your childhood films then don't. Again, just a pre-warning because they don't end the same way. You will probably tell that this story was made into the Little Mermaid by Disney. When I was a kid I was raised on Disney films and this was my favourite one. So you could say I was a bit nervous to start reading it as I heard about the not so happy ever afters of Disney's films. However, I read it anyway and I don't think I realised as a kid how strange it was for a teenage girl to just leave her home to meet a man she has never spoke to. Now that I have read the story I've realised how weird it actually is.

There are so many things that were in the story that they could have put in the film. For instance, the description of the palace sounds so much more beautiful then it is in the film. I also really like the idea that the windows open and close with the way the water flows. In the film the palace is made out of gold and has no windows. However in the book the walls are made of coral, the windows are made of amber and the roof made of shell. This makes more sense to me then a undersea palace made of gold also to it sounds so much better. Another thing that they didn't include is that the Princesses have a grandma that's still alive and looks after the palace since there mum has died. Their grandma is a really proud woman and shows her rank in society by wearing 12 oysters on her tail while others wear six. This seemed funny to me until I realised that we do the same sort of thing in real life. We show how much money we have by wearing or owning expensive things and showing them off to the world. Anyway, their grandma is really proud of her granddaughters as well as her rank and is really fond of them too. Sorry is I over analyse things in this post in my english class we're looking at what deeper meanings there are in Charles Dicken's books. So I tend to look at meanings now and not the actual story (Hope I'm not the only one to do that).
    As I said in my past posts I will put the images at the start of every story up:

I won't tell you anything else about the story because the little details that the movie missed are so good to read and paint a really good picture in your head. So I'l leave that for you to find out. Also, I might start doing a new thing on my blog where I find a well know website where you can buy the book I'm talking about and the story by itself. I'll put the link to this book here and so you know this is the same copy as mine which I didn't expect to find so easily.

Thanks for reading and I'll see you next time. 

xxx