The Wonderful Adventures of Nils
Author:
Selma Lagerlof
Original title:
Nils Holgerssons underbara resa genom Sverige
Original language:
Swedish
Translator:
Velma Swanston Howard
Decorations by Harold Heartt
Publication:
1907 by Doubleday, Page & Company
Genre:
Fables, Fairy Tales, Fantasy, Fiction, Folk Tales, Geography, Nature
Pages:
421
Current state:
Basic information has been added for this book.
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Book Guide
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Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1909—the first woman to be so honored—Swedish novelist Selma Lagerlöf (1858-1940) was a gifted storyteller whose writings were often tinged with the supernatural and rooted in the sagas and legends of her homeland.
She secured her reputation as a children's-book author with The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, long considered a masterpiece of children's literature. Written at the request of Swedish school authorities and first published in 1906, is it the enchanting and remarkably original tale of Nils Holgersson, a mischievous boy of 14 who is changed by an elf into a tiny being able to understand the speech of birds and animals.
Brilliantly weaving fact and fiction into a breathtaking and beautiful fable, the story recounts Nils's adventures as he is transported over the countryside on the back of a goose. From this vantage point Nils witnesses a host of events that provide young readers with an abundance of information about nature, geography, folklore, animal life and more.
From the back of the Dover paperback edition
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Resource Guide
Podcast
Episode 70: Why Read Fairy Tales?
Released in 2020 by The Literary Life
Available formats: Streaming Audio
Length: 1 hr. 29 min.
View on the The Literary Life site
"Angelina Stanford and Cindy Rollins tackle the topic of fairy stories, discussing the what, why and how of reading them. Angelina shares the distinctive characteristics of fairy stories in contrast to other types of stories, such as myths. They deal with the question of whether fairy tales are 'escapist', the influence of the Grimm brothers scholarly work on interpreting fairy stories, and allowing the story to unveil its deeper truths without forcing meaning onto it.
Angelina gives an illustration of how to see the gospel messages in fairy tales by talking us through the story of Sleeping Beauty. She refutes the ideas that fairy tales are about human romance or are misogynistic. She also highlights some of the Enlightenment and Puritan responses to fairy tales that still linger with us today. Cindy and Angelina also discuss some common concerns such as the magical, weird, or scary aspects of fairy tales. Angelina also makes a distinction between folk tales, literary fairy tales, and cautionary tales."
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