The Little Match Girl by: Jerry Pinkney (folk literature)

This picture book is a variant of the traditional Hans Christian Andersen's folk tale, The Little Match Girl. The plot remains the same as its original: a little girl is sent out on the streets to sell matches. No one will buy any from her and she begins to light the matches. One by one, the matches become her only source of warmth and enlighten the girls most cherished wishes. The last match reveals a vision of her deceased grandmother who takes the girl with her, only to leave the girl's body for others to find the next morning. In Pinkney's version, the little girl is of some different race (does not directly state, however, illustrations show a girl of darker complexion). The setting is not in rural Europe, but rather in an urban downtown America during the early twentieth century.

The theme also aligns with its original. Because the ideas in this book are so heavy, I would probably reserve this book for older elementary grades. I would use this as a book for whole-class discussion. Throughout each of the pages I would ask students how they thought the girl was thinking and feeling. I would ask them to take the perspectives of the other people who passed her by. At the end of the read-aloud I would ask students what message they thought the author was trying to give us. The whole focus of this story is to bring compassion and charity into the spotlight. We often think of our lives as not ideal and are always pursuing how to make it better. When our juxtaposed with this girl's story, we are all considered fortunate.