The Steadfast Tin Soldier a personalized book with your child as the hero

On a rainy afternoon, a plain toy box sat on the nursery table. The child and a kind grown-up lifted the lid together, and inside lay a row of simple wooden toys. Among them stood a tiny tin soldier in a red jacket, blue trousers and a black hat.

The soldier had been made last of all, and there had not quite been enough tin. So he had only one leg. But he stood on it as straight and proud as any of the others stood on two.

"Hello, little soldier," said the child, and set him gently on the table.

On that table stood a cardboard castle with a small paper door. In the doorway stood a paper ballerina, folded from ivory paper, with a pale-blue sash and one arm lifted as if she were just about to dance. She looked so light and so graceful that the soldier could not stop looking at her.

"I should like to be her friend," he thought. "But she lives in a castle, and I live in a box."

So he stood very still and very straight and watched her all the evening, while the child peeked from behind the table and smiled.

The next day, the soldier was standing on the windowsill. No one quite knows how he got there. Perhaps a breeze nudged him, or perhaps a little toy mischief was at work. But the window was closed, and the child and the grown-up looked down through the glass and saw him resting on a soft flowerbed outside, among the wet green leaves.

"He is safe," said the grown-up. "The flowers caught him. But he cannot get back by himself."

The rain came down more and more. Soon a little stream ran along the gutter beside the path. The child and the grown-up put on their coats and came outside, but they stood far back on the dry path, because the water was not a place for little feet.

There, in the gutter, a folded paper boat was bobbing. The tin soldier stood in it, as straight as ever, on his one leg. Away he sailed, round and round, past pebbles and leaves.

"Oh, look at him go!" said the child.

The little boat hurried down the stream and came to a low covered drain. On a dry stone beside it sat a small grey rat.

"Halt!" said the rat in a squeaky voice. "Have you a pass? Where are you going, little soldier?"

But the soldier said nothing. He held his head up and kept his eyes forward. The boat spun past the rat, and the rat only twitched its whiskers and stayed on its stone. It was a small, curious rat and not a fierce one, and it wished him a safe journey after all.

The stream carried the boat on to a place where the water was clear and deep. The soldier heard a soft splash, and a large, ordinary fish rose beside him. It had a round, friendly eye and silver scales that shone like coins.

This is the part of the story where the old tale gets strange, and so in this telling it stays gentle and strange. The fish swam close under the boat, as if it knew the way, and carried the soldier along on a quiet ride through the green water. The soldier did not cry or complain. He simply stood in his boat, as steadfast as ever.

Then, as in all the best tales, the water carried him a long way, and a kind of magic did the rest.

The next thing he knew, he was lying in a bright kitchen, on a clean cloth beside a plate. On the plate lay a whole fish, quite ordinary and quite still, and the kind grown-up stood beside it with wide eyes.

"Well, I never," said the grown-up. "Look who has come home."

The child sat on the other side of the table and clapped both hands. There were no knives and no fuss. The grown-up simply lifted the little soldier in one palm, wiped him with the cloth, and held him up for the child to see.

"It is the very same soldier," said the child. "He still has one leg, and he is still standing up straight."

"Yes," said the grown-up. "He is the bravest toy I know."

They carried him back to the nursery, where the cardboard castle waited in the lamplight. The paper ballerina stood in her doorway with her arm still lifted, just as she had been before.

The soldier looked at her, and she looked at him. Neither said a word, but each knew the other was glad.

The grown-up did not leave them on the table, where a breeze or a small elbow might knock them over. Instead, the child and the grown-up chose a low, safe shelf. They set the tin soldier on it, and the paper ballerina beside him, and the cardboard castle behind them.

The child folded a small paper heart from a scrap of red paper and tucked it close beside the two of them.

"Now you can stay together," said the child.

The soldier stood on his one leg, as straight and as steadfast as ever. The ballerina lifted her paper arm. And the little paper heart rested between them while the rain softly stopped, and the nursery grew quiet and warm.