The teapot was very proud of its spout because the cups had a handle and the sugar jar a lid, but the teapot had more than one handle and a lid and it was the only one to have a spout! She talked about it a lot, but spoke much less about her lid, which was broken, as it is well known that we do not willing talk about our faults. If only this one little fault had remained all there was!

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.