Showing results for "Matches" in Historical Fiction

During the Nazi occupation of Ukraine, a match was set up between Dynamo Kiev’s players, playing as FC Start, and a German side. Kiev won. And when the Germans fielded a better side, Kiev beat them, too. And again, and again. Until the half-starved FC Start players faced an international-calibre German side, under the threat of execution if they didn’t let the occupiers win.... An astonishing true story.

Here's a heart-wrenching story about a poor little girl forced to sell matches on Christmas Eve. As she stumbles barefooted into a cold and lonely alley, she is enchanted by visions of Christmas wonders and her beloved grandmother long passed. "The Little Match Girl" is a tale that makes us all grateful for what we have this holiday season.

Few winter stories are more affecting than Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Match Girl. Written in 1848, and strictly speaking a New Year's Eve story, it showed so clearly then, as it does now, that the Christmas holidays do not represent fireside, food, and presents for all. This story never fails to move, yet it somehow avoids serious sentimentality.