The Little Mermaid

By Hans Christian Anderson

Overview: This is a magical tale about a young girl with a tail. A young mermaid has always dreamed about swimming up to the surface of the sea and seeing what lies there, but she is not allowed to until she reaches the age of 15. She is the youngest of her sisters and loves hearing their stories about what they had seen on the surface of the sea. When she finally turns 15, she travels to the surface and sees a great ship with a celebration going on. As she looked closer, she realized that it was a young prince's 16th birthday party. She also sees how handsome and kind the prince is and falls in love with him, but she knows that she cannot be with him so she becomes very sad. After the party was finished, a great storm hit the ship and the prince fell overboard and began to drown. The young mermaid rescued him and brought him safely to shore.

After months of wishing to be with the handsome prince and have an immortal soul like he does, the mermaid decided to go see the only person who could help her, the sea witch. In exchange for a pair of legs that came with terrible daily pain, the sea witch wanted the young mermaid's beautiful voice as payment. In addition, if the prince married someone else besides the mermaid, her heart would break and she would die. She agreed and gained a pair of legs at the loss of her tongue.

After the young prince found the mermaid turned human, he quickly loved her as one loves a child, but nothing more. He told the mermaid that he would only marry the girl who rescued him and without her voice, the mermaid could not tell the prince that it was her who saved him in the storm.

One day the prince visited a neighboring kingdom and met its princess. She was gorgeous and the prince decided to marry her. And so, the little mermaid's heart broke and she died, but she gained the chance to earn an immortal soul in a place between reality and heaven.

This was an enjoyable audiobook to listen to. The narrator does a great job and the background music really sets the scene for what is going on in the story. I would recommend this audiobook to 5th-6th graders because the wording and themes can be difficult to understand.

To listen for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEpJECFkVag

-The Green Eyed Reader

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