Hansel and Gretel: a beautiful illustrated version of the classic fairytale

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In the years that followed, Hansel and Gretel each married well, and the people who went to their weddings ate so much fine food that their belts burst and the fat from the meat ran down their chins, while the pale moon looked down kindly on them all.” Newbery Medal-winner Neil Gaiman retells Hansel and Gretel as a story of parents plotting a murder by neglect, with full-spread India ink compositions by Lorenzo Mattotti as dark and terrifying as his forest setting. ... Gaiman's text is a study in minimalism, yet he includes every salient detail... A perfectly frightful treat.- Shelf Awareness , starred review

Hansel And Gretel - Teaching Ideas Hansel And Gretel - Teaching Ideas

No wonder Gaiman is close friends with George R. R. Martin and so defensive of his pal. Both write people who eat like baby pigs and have no chins. In the beginning there was a woodcarver and his pretty wife and their two children. Times were good and once in a while the family, though never rich, would get a bite of meat. Then the wars came and the famine. Food became so scarce that the wife persuaded her husband to abandon their children in the woods. The first time he tried to do so he failed. The second time he succeeded. And when Hansel and Gretel, the children in question, spotted that gingerbread cottage with its barley sugar windows and hard candy decorations the rest, as they say, was history.Master storyteller Gaiman plumbs the dark depths of Hansel and Gretel… Italian illustrator Mattotti contributes elegant b&w ink spreads that alternate with spreads of text. His artistry flows from the movement of his brush and the play of light and shadow.”— Publishers Weekly , starred review But if you already know the tale, there is nothing new about this. I wouldn't even really call it a retelling as there is just too little about the same story that can be found in hundrets of books already published years ago. I missed the Gaiman-touch a lot. The magic he usually brings to stories. You could find bits and pieces, small hints of something interesting in this book (like the mention of a war devasting the country or the old woman promising Gretel to teach her magic) but it never really led anywhere. There were no unforseen twists, no surprises at all. It didn't feel like it was written by Neil Gaiman at all, apart from the beauty of the words themselves. Don't get me wrong, if you have (for whatever reason) never read a version of this fairy tale, this is the version you should go for. It's dark, it's interesting, it's beautiful – the words as well as the haunting art that's a careful study of darkness and light. There's so much to sink your teeth into, not to mention the huge library of supporting resources for each new text type. Twist the text and make the same old stories take your learning further. Example guided reading questions for the story include:

Hansel and Gretel Standard Edition (A Toon Graphic): Gaiman Hansel and Gretel Standard Edition (A Toon Graphic): Gaiman

Carry out role-play activities linked to the story, e.g. hot seating / interviewing characters from the story. How are they feeling at particular points, or ‘Conscience Corridor’ activities – should Hansel and Gretel go into the gingerbread house? Armistice Day: A Collection of Remembrance - Spark Interest and Educate Children about Historical Moments Newbery Medal–winner Neil Gaiman retells Hansel and Gretel as a story of parents plotting a murder by neglect, with full-spread India ink compositions by Lorenzo Mattotti as dark and terrifying as his forest setting. … Gaiman’s text is a study in minimalism, yet he includes every salient detail… A perfectly frightful treat.”— Shelf Awareness ,starred review And for me, the thing that is so big and so important about the darkness is [that] it’s like in an inoculation… You are giving somebody darkness in a form that is not overwhelming — it’s understandable, they can envelop it, they can take it into themselves, they can cope with it. The Brothers Grimm wrote the original fairy tale. Can you find out what other stories they wrote? If you could interview them today, what questions would you like to ask them?Hansel & Gretel is wholly enthralling from cover to cover. It is also available as a deluxe edition— a lavish large-format volume with a die-cut cover, and dog knows die-cut treats are impossible to resist. Can you create some puppets of the main characters in the story and use these to retell it to an audience?