• By: Mitsumasa Anno

• Pages: 64

• SKU: 9781893103757

• Media: Paperback

• Reading level: Kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th

Denmark is a magical land: the homeland of Hans Christian Andersen, where mermaids fall in love with princes and ugly ducklings turn into swans. It is also the land that changed Mitsumasa Anno’s life. So taken with the power of Andersen’s fairy tales that he visited the author’s birthplace many times, Anno credited Andersen as being a turning point in his own artistic career.

Anno’s Denmark is his loving homage to one of the world’s greatest storytellers. Readers will discover sunny dunes, Viking ruins, colorful seaports, and Shakespeare’s Hamlet alongside Thumbelina, the Steadfast Tin Soldier, the Nightingale, and countless other beloved fairy tale characters tucked into every richly detailed scene.

Now available for the first time with Anno’s notes about each scene translated from Japanese to English, this is a work of joy, humor, and whimsy that rewards every look.

About the Author

Mitsumasa Anno was born in 1926 in Tsuwano, a small town nestled in the mountains of western Japan. Growing up surrounded by peaks and ocean, he developed a longing to see what lay beyond his isolated world. “Because my world was cut off from the outside world, first by the mountains and then by the ocean, the desire to go and see what lay on the other side grew stronger,” he once said. That curiosity never left him. After serving in the Japanese army during World War II, he spent ten years teaching mathematics in Tokyo. In 1968, he began his professional career as a picture book artist, bringing the same passion for learning that shaped his teaching to his artistic work.

Anno’s work earned him some of the highest honors in children’s literature, including the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1984, multiple first prizes for graphic excellence at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, and selection for the New York Times Best Illustrated Books of the Year. In 2001, the Mitsumasa Anno Museum opened in his hometown of Tsuwano, designed by Anno himself, as a place where children could come and explore science, math, and imagination firsthand. A lover of travel and culture, Anno believed that beneath all our differences, the heart of every human being holds the same inherent value, and his books reflect that belief on every page.