Nutcracker

On Christmas Eve, Fritz and Klara receive gifts from their parents: dolls, a wooden horse, toy hussars, tiny dishes, and picture books. Their godfather, Drosselmeier, presents them with a miniature castle with golden towers, whose halls are adorned with gentlemen and ladies. The children are introduced to another toy: a small, ugly man named the Nutcracker, who can crack hard nuts. Thus begins Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann's famous fairy tale, "The Nutcracker," first published in 1816. This book contains a short retelling of this tale from the German by Leonid Yakhnin for young children. This book was conceived and illustrated by the renowned English artist Alison Jay. This is one of her twenty famous books. For children under 3.