In Horatio Alger's book, Ragged Dick, Alger very closely structures it to a fairy tale. While reading it, if you just look at how everything is laid out, you can easily see how much like a fairy tale it really is. Dick starts out as a homeless boy who shines shoes for money, but he is hardly your normal homeless boy. He lives by himself, is very poorly dressed, and is not disgusted by the streaks of dirt on his face. "But there were some good points about him neverless. He was above doing anything mean or dishonorable. He would not steal, or cheat, or impose upon younger boys, but was frank and straight-forward, manly and self-reliant." Those features set him apart from your normal homeless vagabond. Alger even gives Dick the body of a fairy tale hero, as "it was easy to see that if he had been clean and well dressed he would have been decidedly good-looking." Dick, later on in the book, becomes the "fairy tale prince" after following a young boy and his uncle to a nice hotel where he was given all new clothes. It is an example of your classic rags-to-riches fairy tale. He is all of a sudden a changed man, no longer recognized by his friends that knew him when he was a homeless vagabond. Because of his new looks, he is elevated to a higher status and can do lots of things that he was never able to do because of his appearance.
             ...