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The Little Match Girl

From Andersen's Fairy Tales, by Hans Christian Andersen

Hans Christian Andersen first published this story in 1845. It is one of his most famous and most searing tales—a story that exposes the cruelty of indifference and the gulf between the comfortable and the destitute. Andersen based it in part on his own mother's childhood poverty. This text reflects its era; a few period terms have been modernised. The story is worth a reader's time because it demands empathy, challenges comfortable assumptions about suffering and justice, and asks what we owe to those the world ignores.

Band: Blue · Independent readers, confidentTypical starting range: ages 12–14
Length: long · about 1009 words in 5 sections · 2 pictures
Source: Andersen's Fairy Tales, H. C. Andersen
First published: see the About page in the reader
Regions: Canada · United States

Included formats

· Web reader and PDF
· EPUB for e-readers
· Home-print sheet
· Folded booklet
· Binder edition (8.5 × 11)
· Worksheet
· Quick Check (10 questions) with answer key
· Read-aloud script
· Teacher’s Edition (members)

Lesson at a glance

Reading: about 10 minutes at this band
Pause questions: 1
Words to Know: 11
Quick Check: 10 questions, with the answer key
Let’s Talk: 2 questions for afterwards
Worksheet: questions, an activity and a drawing prompt

About 40 minutes with one story, all of it.

Readers are engineered from the original public-domain text with AI under HummingRead’s published canon and Content Philosophy, checked by automated audit and sampled by a person. Pictures are made with AI to HummingRead’s brief for each story. How a reader is made.

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