The Princess and the Pea

The Princess and the Pea

Hans Christian Andersen

Source/Date: HCA Gilead 2007

Reading Level: 1st Grade

Genre: Fairy Tale

Summary:

This tale is about a Prince who is looking for a princess to marry. He searches everywhere and finds many young ladies, but doesn't know which ones are really princesses or which are only pretending. He always found that there was something not quite right about the girls, so he came home very sad. One stormy night they had a knock at their gate and there was a girl. She claimed to be a princess, but the kind and queen decided to give her a test to see if she really was a princess or not. The queen put a small pea underneath 20 mattresses, and she told the girl to sleep there. In the morning they asked her how she had slept. Her response was that it had been awful because she had felt something in her mattress. They decided that nobody but a princess could be so sensitive, so the prince took the girl and married her.

Who would benefit from reading this story?

Anyone who enjoys fairy tales about royalty would enjoy reading this story. It is a good one for kids when compared to a lot of the other fairy tales that contain violence. This tale includes no violence at all, so those who like fairy tales without any killing or dying in it will benefit from reading this story.

What conflicts/problems would this book potentially cause?

I don't see how there could be any problems caused from reading this story.

My Reaction:

I really liked this story. I'm not sure why because it is quite short. It may be the shortest fairy tale I read, but I still found it interesting. I had never read it before, but I had heard people mention it when they speak of spoiled little girls.