His Fairytale Life: A Book About Hans Christian Andersen [Hardcover]

The storyteller becomes the story in this illuminating biographical picture book of Hans Christian Andersen, father of the modern fairy tale.

A century and a half have passed since Hans Christan Andersen’s death, but his stories are more alive than ever. Across languages, borders, and disciplines, his timeless creations have left a footprint beyond measuring. Now, come along back to the beginning and meet the human that came before the legend.  

He was a boy
who lived with a mother
who could not read,
but remembered every fairy tale
she’d been told…

Appropriately penned by Jane Yolen, who Newsweek has called “the Hans Christian Andersen of America,” His Fairytale Life is as immersive and transporting as all good fairy tales should be. Each page sings with Brooke Boynton-Hughes’s dazzlingly intricate illustrations. Classics lovers and Disney fanatics alike will cherish this dreamy tome.

A Booklist Editor’s Choice: Books for YouthA treasure. . . Yolen sensitively recounts how Andersen’s story was marked by hardship, ambition, creativity, and longing. The beauty of her writing astounds.
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

This beautiful picture book serves as a poetic tribute from one imaginative writer to another.
—Booklist (starred review)

Yolen traces via a single, lilting sentence the life of Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875), whose original stories are now considered cultural touchstones. . . Pale, romantic watercolor, graphite, and ink spreads by Boynton-Hughes (Heart String) set the evel3I