One sunny day, when a little sea fish was swimming joyfully with his eighteen thousand brothers and sisters, the water was darkened by an enormous eel who came from above and was heading deeper into the sea. It disappeared very quickly and as soon as the calm had returned, the cutest little fish, who was also the most curious, went looking for information to find out who this newcomer to the Ocean was. Could it be the great sea serpent?
Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) was a Danish author, poet and artist. Celebrated for children’s literature, his most cherished fairy tales include “The Emperor's New Clothes”, “The Little Mermaid”, “The Nightingale”, “The Steadfast Tin Soldier”, “The Snow Queen”, “The Ugly Duckling” and “The Little Match Girl”. His books have been translated into every living language, and today there is no child or adult that has not met Andersen's whimsical characters. His fairy tales have been adapted to stage and screen countless times, most notably by Disney with the animated films “The Little Mermaid” in 1989 and “Frozen”, which is loosely based on “The Snow Queen”, in 2013. Thanks to Andersen's contribution to children's literature, his birth date, April 2, is celebrated as International Children's Book Day.
