The Emperor's New Clothes
Classical Stories · No. 75 — The child who said out loud what everyone could see.
- Classical Stories
- 42 min
- Ages 8–13
- 6 chapters
About this audiobook
A vain emperor who cares only for fine clothes is visited by two swindlers posing as weavers, who claim to make cloth of a magical property: it is invisible to anyone who is stupid or unfit for their post. They 'weave' at empty looms, and no one — not the emperor, not his ministers, not the emperor himself — dares admit to seeing nothing, for fear of being thought a fool. The swindlers 'dress' the emperor in the nonexistent finery, and he parades through the city in a grand procession, everyone praising clothes that aren't there, all of them trapped by the same fear. Then a small child in the crowd, too young to have learned to pretend, cries out that the emperor has nothing on at all — and the truth, once spoken, spreads through the whole crowd.
Why it's worth a listen
Two swindlers promise a vain emperor a magical suit of clothes so fine that only the wise and worthy can see it — which means no one dares admit they see nothing at all, not the ministers, not the crowd, not the emperor parading down the street in his underclothes. Until one small child, who hasn't learned to pretend, says the six words that pop the whole bubble. The wisest, funniest little story about honesty ever told.
A question to keep
Why is it so hard to say the obvious truth when everyone around you is pretending?
Chapters
- The Sovereign of Silks and Satins
- The Magic of the Loom
- The Court of Whispers
- The Emperor’s Eyes
- The Fitting and the Procession
- A Question to Keep