Two fourth-grade classes in Poland addressing Hans Christian Andersen and sending him their drawings

In February 2002 Johan de Mylius, director of the Hans Christian Andersen Center at University of Southern Denmark, Odense, received an e-mail from Poland saying:

Dear Mr. Mylius,

We are sending this letter from Poland. We are pupils of the fourth class, and we are 11 years old. We are living in the South-Eastern part of the country, in the city called Rzeszów.

During our school classes we have learned about many fairy tales of H.Ch. Andersen. Being impressed by the unusual beauty of those compositions, we made a decision to write a letter to their author, in order to express how much we appreciate his work, and emphasize that his creation influenced us really much.

Unfortunately, being not capable to deliver this letter directly to Mr. Andersen, from the obvious reasons, we send it to your attention.
We would also like to make you aware that we are sending our paintings, which we created during our school classes. All those works have been created by us, being under huge impression of Mr. Andersen's fairy tales. Those works will be sent by regular mail.

Yours Faithfully, Sincere admirers of H.Ch. Andersen.

The letter said:

Dear Mr. Andersen.
We decided to write this letter because we'd like to thank you for your beautiful fairy tales, which gave us a lot of unforgettable feelings.
Thanks to things you wrote we find out what is really important in life. It helped us to look at the world in a different way. Now we are able to perceive someone's misery, sympathize with poor people who were touched by misfortune, or simply be happy listening to the singing birds. We understood that real love can indeed overcome obstacles, which we face during our life. We have also learned to be selfconfident, believing in human strength, never give up and always fight for our happiness.
Thanks to your fairy tales the world becomes more beautiful, since they teach how to notice beauty of ordinary things. It is you, who make us believe that every "ugly duckling" can finally become a swan. This faith gives us strength in life, for which we would like to thank you once again.

Sincerely yours,
Pupils of a classes 4c & 4b,
and their teacher
Anna Skrzypinska

By ordinary mail the Hans Christian Andersen-Center then received 12 fancy coloured drawings from the two classes, inspired by the Andersen-stories, they had read. We render them here in our web-gallery so that others, hopefully around the world can be inspired by them - and do likewise. We would like to hear from you, whereever you are!

Johan de Mylius.