Listening to Hans Christian Andersen

PlainTales recently released an unabridged collection of Hans Christian Andersen stories.

There are couple of things that are unique about our version:

1. The stories we selected can be enjoyed by kids as young as 4 years old. Many of his most famous stories have very adult themes and language. Examples include The Little Mermaid and The Snow Queen. But the stories we selected, such as The Ugly Duckling and The Emperor’s New Clothes can be understood and enjoyed by even the youngest listeners.

2. Our stories are unabridged translations of the stories written by Hans Christian Andersen. The shelves are full of “retold” version of his stories. In many cases this is fine and we think it’s a great idea to listen to, or read, both the original stories and to explore thoughtful retellings. But there are also lots of versions of the story that are churned out with little regard for the original story and their audience.

We think hearing the unabridged versions of these classics together as a family is a source of great entertainment and education and PlainTales makes it easy to enjoy these stories together. Most people probably know these stories by reputation or from a retold version. Hans Christian Andersen was an amazing storyteller and a true literary writer and it’s a real treat to hear the original stories.

When I first looked into buying these classic stories on audio to listen to with my kids I found a couple of collections that were well done but I had to pre-screen the stories to come up with a selection that would work for the whole family. With PlainTales that work is already done.