Fairy tale · 声匠改编 · 3:45
Thumbelina
A girl no bigger than a thumb escapes a toad, winters with a field mouse, nearly weds a mole, and is rescued by a swallow. Andersen, retold for bedtime.
Narrator
Thumbelina
The Toad
The Field Mouse
The Mole
The Swallow
The Flower PrinceOther languages · 2 languages
About this story
Thumbelina is a fairy tale by the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen, first published in Copenhagen in 1835. This bedtime retelling keeps the walnut-shell bed, the toad's son who can only say "brekke-ke-kex", the field mouse, the grand old mole and the swallow, and ends as Andersen does, with the flower prince giving Thumbelina wings and the new name Maia. A few rough edges are smoothed: the cockchafer who carries her off and then drops her is left out, and the toads, the field mouse and the mole are played for laughs rather than menace.
What it teaches
Even the smallest person can be brave and kind: Thumbelina's care for a frozen swallow is exactly what saves her in the end. The story also says it's all right to turn down a life that isn't right for you, and to keep looking for where you belong.
Suits
Ages 3–8
Tips for telling it
- Make a walnut-shell bed with a petal blanket for a tiny toy, and talk about what would seem giant if you were thumb-sized.
- Let your child do the toad son's "Croak, croak, brekke-ke-kex" every time it comes up.
- Ask: how did helping the swallow end up helping Thumbelina too?
Questions people ask
- Who wrote Thumbelina?
- Hans Christian Andersen, the Danish author, published Thumbelina in 1835 in one of his first booklets of fairy tales. In Danish she is called Tommelise.
- What is Thumbelina's new name at the end?
- Maia. When she agrees to stay in the land of flowers, the flower prince gives her a pair of wings and the new name Maia.
- How big is Thumbelina?
- No taller than a thumb, about an inch. That's why she can sleep in a walnut shell and sail away on a lily pad.
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