Children need the realistic story side by side with the purely imaginative fairy tale, for the story true to human experience serves to bring about a proper balance between the ideas created by a world of fancy and those of the world of reality.
The standard of literary merit is the same for both kinds of stories. Both must influence the child's life subtly and indirectly, not by moralizing or preaching.
Gudrun Thorne-Thomsen.
CONTENTS
| [The Birch and the Star] | 9 |
| [Viggo and Beate] | 31 |
| [The Doll under the Rosebush] | 31 |
| [Viggo] | 41 |
| [The Floating Island] | 47 |
| [Hans, the Old Soldier] | 62 |
| [Allarm] | 72 |
| [The Black Pond] | 84 |
| [Bikku Matti] | 97 |
... the gentleman stopped out of his carriage
(took Bikku by the hand)