The Value of Fantasy: The Story of Hans Christian Andersen

The ValueTale series is the only series I have ever found the published biographies that would interest fourth-graders. Each page contains colorful, cartoon-like illustrations. Each book in the series creates an imaginary friend for the main character (for young Hans it's an ugly duckling). The main part of the book tells a simplified historical fiction biography of the character, and the last page is always a fact sheet to fill in any biographical details that didn't fit in the story. Each biography encourages a value. I loved these books when I was a kid, and now I've collected them for my own daughter. I found the appeal goes well beyond fourth grade--I will still pick one up to get a quick overview of who a person is.