If it's sad, it must be deep.

Faith has moved into the 3rd grade curriculum, at least for English, arts & science while she finishes up math and history in the 2nd grade book.  Her story today was "The Little Match Girl."  I don't know why they want me to read these things aloud.  I've been through "The Velveteen Rabbit" and Charlotte's Web, and every time I have to struggle to get through without my voice breaking.  "Match Girl" makes the trifecta of depressing. Why is this a children's story?  Sounds more like a headline: "Abused child freezes to death; ignored by passersby."

According to Wikipedia (I know, I know...), Andersen updated a story by the Brothers Grimm in which the innocent child was rewarded with riches from heaven instead of dying in an alleyway.  Grimm fairy tales may have a rep for being gruesome, but at least it's only the bad guys who die horribly, while the virtuous are rewarded.  Andersen goes for cathartic emotion-porn for Victorians to sit around their parlors and weep over: the Match Girl, the non-Disneyfied Little Mermaid, the Steadfast Tin Soldier.  You can draw a direct line from him to emotionally-manipulative songs like "The Christmas Shoes" and anything by Nicholas Sparks.