Hansel and Gretel

by Brothers Grimm, Hyeon-suk Jo (Illustrator)

Overview

Hansel and Gretel are abandoned in the woods by their wicked stepmother. Lost, hungry and exhausted, they come across a strange house made of sweets. This is a wonderful sight for two hungry children, but they soon find out the owner is a wicked witch with her own ideas about what is tasty. The artwork combines illustration and collage techniques to bring this spooky, but quirky classic to life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781925186666
Publisher:	Big & Small
Publication date:	08/01/2015
Series:	World Classics Series
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	9.50(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.30(d)
Lexile:	550L (what's this?)
Age Range:	8 - 9 Years

About the Author

The Brothers Grimm researched and edited a vast collection of folk tales. The versions they published are timeless cautionary tales which contain much wisdom.

Hyeon-sook Jo studied Western Painting in college and has worked on many children's books. Here she uses mixed media to show personality and build tension.

Place of Birth:

Hanau, Germany

Place of Death:

Berlin, Germany

Editorial Reviews

Working from a faithful translation of the original text, Zwerger has created rosy-cheeked, appealing children who look as if they have just descended the Alps. The witch, by contrast, is a shapeless, fiery-eyed ghoul with real scare potential, but the illustrations never take advantage of that; the pictures show passive moments and have an ephemeral quality because there is almost no background for the figures on the page. For example, on one page of text, the stepmother kindles a fire and leaves Hansel and Gretel alone, the birds come and eat the trail of bread crumbs, the children walk for 24 hours without much food, sleep and walk again. Opposite is a picture of the siblings, looking melancholy but not appearing to be in dire straits. The design of the book falters: some of the artwork is horizontal and bleeds, other paintings are vertical, with wide gutters and margins; the text is set in light type without paragraph indentations and so readability suffers. Zwerger's artistic gifts are not wholly in evidenceeven simple details like Hansel's hair color, which varies, are overlooked. For once, her version of a popular story is extraneous, and Hansel and Gretel, so often done and redone, seem lost. Ages 6-up. (June)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

K-Gr 3-This version of the familiar tale of two clever children who overcome their fears and triumph over evil, while clear and readable, tends toward the lurid. For example, when Gretel pushes the witch into the oven, the text reads: "The old witch burned to death, screaming and howling miserably." Duntze's startlingly imaginative illustrations range from impressionistic to surreal, and vary in size and coloration to match the changing moods of the narrative. The cleverly wrought bread-strewn endpapers set the tone for this stylized picture book. While a few of the images are potentially frightening, most will agree that the illustrations are accomplished and very special, indeed.-Barbara Buckley, Rockville Centre Public Library, NY Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

School Library Journal

Sinister but not gruesome, this retelling, first published in Canada, of one of the scariest of all fairy tales gives the story a contemporary setting. There's one basic change: the stepmother of the original is the mother this time, which is something many children may have always felt anyway. The pictures show a dark forest on a stormy shore. Times are hard; the mother is a scold with her hair in rollers; the father is too weak to stand up to her when she insists they abandon their children. Done with pastel pencil on black paper, the illustrations have a brooding, surreal fearfulness; and though the words say that the story ends happily, the pictures remain scary, the witch always a threat. Use this version with older readers who know the story.

Hazel Rochman

“A classic Grimm Brothers tale gets an all-new look in this stunning retelling.” – 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing, New York Public Library

“Even the most jaded reader may find his scalp prickling with dread at the sight of Sybille Schenker's illustrations in "Hansel and Gretel" (Minedition, 52 pages, $29.99).…. Ms. Schenker uses inky silhouettes and paper-cut images on translucent paper to make this most familiar of Grimm tales feel alarmingly new.” – Wall Street Journal

From the Publisher