Once upon a time, a woman wished with all her heart for a little child. She planted a magic seed in a flowerpot, and the next morning, a beautiful flower bloomed. When the petals opened, sitting inside was a tiny girl, no bigger than a thumb.

"I'll call you Thumbelina," said the woman, and she loved her dearly. Thumbelina slept in a walnut shell lined with rose petals and sailed across a bowl of water on a tulip leaf. She was happy.

But one night, a big ugly toad hopped in through the window. "What a pretty little thing!" said the toad. "She would make a fine wife for my son." And she carried Thumbelina away to the river.

The toad set Thumbelina on a lily pad in the middle of the stream so she couldn't escape. Poor Thumbelina cried and cried. The little fish in the water felt sorry for her. They nibbled through the stem of the lily pad, and it floated away downstream, carrying Thumbelina to freedom.

A beautiful white butterfly landed on the lily pad and kept her company as she drifted along. But then a big beetle snatched her up and carried her to a tree.

"Look at my prize!" said the beetle to his friends. But the other beetles looked at Thumbelina and shook their heads. "She's ugly," they said. "She only has two legs. She doesn't even have antennae." The beetle lost interest and dropped her in the grass.

Thumbelina lived alone in the forest through the summer, eating honey from flowers and drinking morning dew. But when winter came, she was cold and hungry and had nowhere to go.

She found a little door in the ground and knocked. A field mouse answered. "You poor little thing!" said the field mouse. "Come in and get warm." The field mouse gave her a room to stay in and food to eat, and in return, Thumbelina kept the house tidy and told stories.

"My neighbor the mole is coming to visit," said the field mouse one day. "He is rich and would make you a fine husband." The mole came in his black velvet coat. He couldn't see well and didn't care for sunshine or flowers, but he was very impressed by Thumbelina's singing.

The mole showed them a tunnel he had dug. In the tunnel lay a swallow, stiff and cold. "Dead bird," said the mole, stepping over it. But that night, Thumbelina crept back to the tunnel. She pressed her ear to the bird's chest and heard — a heartbeat! The swallow wasn't dead, only frozen.

All winter long, Thumbelina secretly nursed the swallow back to health, bringing him food and covering him with a blanket she wove from dry grass.

When spring came, the swallow was strong again. "Come with me!" he said. "I'll carry you to the warm countries where I spend the winter." But Thumbelina didn't want to be rude to the kind field mouse. "I can't," she said sadly. The swallow flew away.

Summer passed, and the mole asked Thumbelina to marry him. The field mouse said she must accept. The wedding was set for autumn.

On the last day of summer, Thumbelina stood at the door of the mouse hole and looked up at the sun. "Goodbye, beautiful sun," she whispered. "Goodbye, flowers. Goodbye, sky. I'll never see you again underground."

Just then, she heard a familiar sound. "Tweet! Tweet!" The swallow had returned.

"Dear Thumbelina, winter is coming and I'm flying south. Please come with me this time. You saved my life — let me give you a new one."

This time, Thumbelina didn't hesitate. She climbed onto the swallow's back, and they soared up into the sky, over forests and mountains and seas, all the way to a land where the sun always shone and flowers bloomed year round.

The swallow set her down in a white flower. And there, standing in the center of another flower, was a tiny prince, no bigger than Thumbelina herself. He had delicate wings and a golden crown. He was the king of the flower people.

He thought Thumbelina was the most beautiful person he had ever seen. He offered her a pair of wings of her own.

Thumbelina had traveled far and been through so much. She had been stolen by a toad, dropped by a beetle, nearly married to a mole. But she had also been brave and kind, and now she had found the place where she belonged.

She spread her new wings and smiled, and she was happy at last.