By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘The Steadfast Tin Soldier’ is an 1838 fairy tale by the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen. One of the shortest among Andersen’s well-known tales, ‘The Steadfast Tin Soldier’ is about a toy soldier who falls in love with a paper ballerina, and who undergoes […]
Tag: Children’s Literature
A Summary and Analysis of Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘The Red Shoes’ Fairy Tale
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘The Red Shoes’ (1845) is perhaps the strangest of all of Hans Christian Andersen’s well-known fairy tales. Divining the meaning of some of Andersen’s other stories for children is relatively easy, but a number of aspects of the meaning and symbolism of ‘The Red […]
The Best Fables by Aesop Everyone Should Know
Aesop wasn’t the first person to write animal fables. Several centuries earlier, Hesiod had written one about a hawk and a nightingale, while a poet named Archilochus penned several, including one about an eagle and a vixen, and one about a fox and a monkey. But Aesop, a writer about […]
A Summary and Analysis of the ‘Dog in the Manger’ Fable
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘The Dog in the Manger’ is one of several fables attributed to the ancient writer Aesop which have become not just famous, but proverbial: the fable has itself become a well-known phrase whose meaning is synonymous with the fable’s moral. However, as with a […]
The Best Nursery Rhymes Everyone Should Know
10 of the most classic children’s rhymes – selected by Dr Oliver Tearle For most of us, nursery rhymes are the first poems we ever encounter in life. They can teach us about rhythm, and about constructing a story in verse, and, occasionally, they impart important moral lessons to us. […]