Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić is one of the most important writers for children in Croatia. Hans Christian Andersen is a world-famous Danish author. It is characteristic of Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić and Hans Christian Andersen that they wrote fairy tales for children. Their fairy tales are on the list of compulsory reading in primary school. They are mostly read by elementary school students attending lower grades . In this paper, sociodemographic variables (school, class, gender, general success), preferences and knowledge of fairy tales by Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić and Hans Christian Andersen were examined. Fairy tales that have previously been read as compulsory reading by the 3rd and 4th grade students at the elementary schools „Manušˮ, „Lučacˮ and „Split 3ˮ were selected for the research. On the list of mandatory readings, „Regočˮ and „Stribor's forestˮ were selected from Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić, and „The Emperor's new clothesˮ, „The ugly ducklingˮ and „A little match girl" from Hans Christian Andersen. The research instrument for collecting the necessary data was a survey questionnaire. 105 3rd and 4th grade elementary school students participated in the research. The results of the research showed that there is no statistically significant correlation in student preferences for fairy tales by Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić and Hans Christian Andersen, but also that there is no statistically significant correlation between the results on the preference scale and the overall result of knowing a certain fairy tale. Students who circled 4. (partially like) and 5. (completely like) on the Liketer scale had a worse knowledge of fairy tales compared to students who circled 1. (completely dislike), 2. (partly dislike) and 3. (neither like nor dislike). Therefore, it can be concluded that the students who preferred the above-mentioned fairy tales less, probably have a better understanding of the problems and lessons of the above-mentioned fairy tales. The students who preferred the abovementioned fairy tales probably did not have the best understanding of the issues and lessons of those fairy tales but prefer them for some other reasons.