This is a 1928 version of Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘The Little Match Girl,’ directed by French film great Jean Renoir and Jean Tédesco. The story is a simple one about the visions of a poor match girl as she freezes to death in the snow. It’s a loose adaptation that actually seems rather rigid and [...]

A 1954 Castle film adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘The Little Match Girl.’

DOWNLOAD PINOCCHIO – CHAPTER 17 Per l’Italia!  More of our story! This is one of the great gifts from Italy to the children of the world. Carlo Collodi’s 1883 masterpiece, The Adventures of Pinocchio, is the story of the wooden marionette who desperately wants to be a real boy. His adventures are full of mischief, [...]

DOWNLOAD PINOCCHIO – CHAPTER 16 Per l’Italia!  More of our story! This is one of the great gifts from Italy to the children of the world. Carlo Collodi’s 1883 masterpiece, The Adventures of Pinocchio, is the story of the wooden marionette who desperately wants to be a real boy. His adventures are full of mischief, [...]

DOWNLOAD PINOCCHIO – CHAPTER 15 Per l’Italia!  More of our story! I’m digging up some of the old files I never posted from years ago. This book is long and it’s very hard to record. I am going to make an effort to finish it soon. This is one of the great gifts from Italy [...]

Some of the readers of this site will know that this story is the original piece of material behind Candlelight Stories. Back in 1994, I sat at a very flimsy folding table in a Los Angeles apartment with a box of pastels, crayons and ballpoint pens to scratch out a pile of illustrations that vaguely [...]

Story by Artie Knapp Illustration by Maya Ramaswamy Light On a Snowy Day IT WAS TWO DAYS before Christmas and young Maggie Dotson was already being told that her Christmas wish would not be coming true. Paxton she was told, would not be coming back. A year before that December day an injured baby deer [...]

C Merry has created an epic rambling fairy tale that weaves her own modern perspective through the classic stories that children have been familiar with for centuries. The result is both humorous and unsettling. C Merry combines these tales with mythology and Christmas to explain things that have been long forgotten. It’s a beautiful way [...]

DOWNLOAD MP3 AUDIO In honor of the great people of Japan during a terrible crisis, I re-post this beautiful tale. This is the story of young Momotaro, whose name literally means Peach Boy. The story is one of the most popular from Japanese folklore. Its theme of the unification of a people separated by hostility [...]

Artie Knapp writes marvelous, cheerful and gently humorous tales for children.  He’s been offering his stories to this site for years and I always look forward to a new one.  Knapp’s latest accomplishment is an illustrated book of stories published by Mighty Book, Inc. and illustrated by Mike Motz. The stories included were previously published [...]