Today, is the birthday of little Marie, she is overwhelmed with gifts, each one more beautiful than the last: a toy kitchen, a doll, a picture book and more. But for Marie the best gift would be to have many more birthdays, she loves life and intends to live for a long time! And this is what her family think of that...

Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) was a Danish author, poet and artist. Celebrated for children’s literature, his most cherished fairy tales include "The Emperor's New Clothes", "The Little Mermaid", "The Nightingale", "The Steadfast Tin Soldier", "The Snow Queen", "The Ugly Duckling" and "The Little Match Girl". His books have been translated into every living language, and today there is no child or adult that has not met Andersen's whimsical characters. His fairy tales have been adapted to stage and screen countless times, most notably by Disney with the animated films "The Little Mermaid" in 1989 and "Frozen", which is loosely based on "The Snow Queen", in 2013.

Thanks to Andersen's contribution to children's literature, his birth date, April 2, is celebrated as International Children's Book Day.