Friday, January 20, 2012

The Wild Swans by Hans Christian Anderson (adapted by Delia Huddy)

Generally I am not a big fan of fairy tales but this one got me hooked. Once there lived a king (the usual story) who has eleven sons and a very attractive daughter called Elise. Their mother dies and their father marries again (the usual story). It turns out that she is a wicked queen, and she puts a spell onto the princes turning them into swans. Jealous of Elise's beauty as she matures into a young woman, the queen weaves a spell to make her her ugly and unrecognisable to her father, and Elise becomes an outcast who only has the forest for company. She sets out on a journey to find her brothers and then has to perform a very challenging tasks to free them form the spell. The text is accompanied by detailed ink drawings by Nigel Murray. It's a small book of 63 pages, so if you a looking for a lighter, quicker read, this may be the book for you. There is a short information panel about Hans Christian Anderson in the back of the book along with previews of other Walker books at the same level.
Click on the link below to watch the movie The Wild Swans which is a Russian film made in 1962, it has been dubbed into English:

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