5 Good Books to Read About Fairy Tales

1. The Snow Queen by H. C. Andersen

It would be folly to neglect the Nordic King of fairy tales and one of his best stories. The Snow Queen is a classic display of the battle between good, represented by two children, and evil, externalized by the Snow Queen.

Little boy named Kai is abducted by one of the Queen’s servants, a hobgoblin. He is promised to be released, if he manages to spell the word “eternity” using ice in front of the Queen’s estate.

Kai is rescued by his secret love Gerda, a girl who lives across the street in his real home. She has to overcome many challenges on the path to Kai, e.g. a witch, who intended to keep Gerda for herself.

I’m telling you, we all need to hear that Good defeats Evil thanks to love; it’s definitely a good fairy tale.

2. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by L. Carroll

This one is for children and adults alike. C. L. Dodgson (L. Carroll was just his pseudonym) created a world full of strange creatures and twisted logic. It pushes our imagination to the limit, and you don’t need to be 5 years old to find it fascinating.

A young, bored girl named Alice follows a talking rabbit, later on falls through a rabbit hole and ends up in a weird and extraordinary world. She meets the Hatter, the Mouse, the Caterpillar and goes through many queer adventures.

Alice in Wonderland (a common abbreviation) also has several film adaptations, but I feel that the original book is the best “adaptation” to be concerned with – make sure you include Alice in your list of fairy tales.

3. Fireflies by J. Karafiat

I dare to include one of my national jewels as well. The book Fireflies has been written at the end of the 19th century and it depicts a family of insect-like people.

Karafiat’s imaginative style of writing may very well take your breaths away. No matter how old you are, you will be soon sucked into the world of little, religious people and their catchy stories.

Fireflies is a piece of Christian literature. Consequently, one of the major plots is that whenever any character does something based on his own decision and without obedience to God, he gets punished. We ought to bear in mind two things though:

• if your family is non-Christian, it’s no problem to skip certain passages or to simply elaborate it further to the kid


• kids don’t care that much about beliefs as adults do

4. The Moomins by T. Jansson

Would you like to meet white, corpulent trolls with a hippo-like snout? If you don’t, at least your children should; because the stories from Moominvalley, a mythical land in a Finnish forest are very, very good.

The main family of Moominpappa, Moominmamma and Moomintroll is at times accompanied by Hemulen, Sniff, The Snork maiden and other secondary characters. Moomins are bohemes, like nature very much and have no problems at all with versatility.

Especially in our era, when technology quickly takes the upper hand over nature, it is important to build a relation to the countryside and respect nature.

5. Pippi Longstocking by A. Lindgren

Pippi has probably the best background to become a favorite children’s heroine:

• she lives alone in Villa Villekulla, accompanied only by a monkey Mr. Nillson and an old horse


• she has an unmatchable strength


• she teaches the sense of fair play and is able to make fools from adults who are condescending and such

Pippi, along with her two friends Tommy and Annika, goes through many adventures. She doesn’t go to school, but is very intelligent nevertheless. Pippi lives by a chest full of gold coins and other small treasures.

Astrig Lindgren created truly a perfect fairy tale for children, because she came up with a child capable of taking care about itself – something a lot of kids dream about, although they have no idea how much more complicated the task is.

Conclusion

I sincerely hope you’ve enjoyed my small list of 5 good fairy tales and just to let you know – I’m painfully aware of the tens of other stories I was unable to include. I however think that my suggestions will help you in choosing the best fairy tale for your child.

Thank you for reading!

5 Good Books to Read About Fairy Tales