It's Not Hansel and Gretel

by Josh Funk, Edwardian Taylor (Illustrator)

Overview

Hansel and Gretel will not listen to their storyteller. For one thing, who leaves a trail of bread crumbs lying around, when there are people starving? Not Hansel, that’s for sure! And that sweet old lady who lives in a house made of cookies and candy? There’s no way she’s an evil witch! As for Gretel, well, she’s about to set the record straight—after all, who says the story can’t be called Gretel and Hansel? It’s time for these wacky siblings to take their fairy tale into their own hands. So sit back and enjoy the gingerbread!

With laugh-out-loud dialogue and bold, playful art (including hidden search-and-find fairy-tale creatures), this Hansel and Gretel retelling will have kids giggling right up to the delicious ending!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781503902947
Publisher:	Amazon Publishing
Publication date:	03/01/2019
Series:	It's Not a Fairy Tale , #2
Pages:	40
Product dimensions:	8.70(w) x 11.00(h) x 0.40(d)
Lexile:	540L (what's this?)
Age Range:	5 - 8 Years

About the Author

Like Hansel and Gretel, Josh Funk doesn’t like being told how stories should go—so he writes his own. He is the author of a bunch of picture books, including the popular Lady Pancake & Sir French Toast series, illustrated by Brendan Kearney, and recently, How to Code a Sandcastle, illustrated by Sara Palacios, and Lost in the Library: A Story of Patience & Fortitude, illustrated by Stevie Lewis. He lives in New England with his wife and children. Learn more about him at www.joshfunkbooks.com and follow him on Twitter @joshfunkbooks.

Editorial Reviews

Taylor’s digital illustrations take the loony text several steps farther, and readers will enjoy the cameos from characters from other familiar tales…A twisted take on an old standard that just may have readers rewriting their own favorites.” —Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

2018-11-21

An omniscient narrator battles Hansel and Gretel for control of the story…and loses, to readers' delight.

At the start, this seems like the standard fairy tale, but it's not long before the siblings are contradicting the narrator: "What kind of person SAVES bread crumbs?" Gretel asks, and Hansel adds, "It's a time of great famine. If there are bread crumbs left, we eat them." These cheeky retorts only grow more numerous as the tale continues. Gretel also flexes her feminist muscles, demanding the title be "Gretel and Hansel" and that she not do chores while Hansel gets fattened up on a candy diet (or swells from a sensitivity to strawberries, as it turns out: "Food allergies are NOT a joke"). Eventually, the narrator gives up trying to fix the tale and gives the two full control, and things quickly get out of hand: Both end up sporting mustaches, there's a unicorn named Fluffybottom, and the kids are reunited with their completely innocent parents. Taylor's digital illustrations take the loony text several steps farther, and readers will enjoy the cameos from characters from other familiar tales. Hansel, Gretel, and their parents present white, and the witch is literally white, with a long, pink nose.

A twisted take on an old standard that just may have readers rewriting their own favorites. (Picture book. 4-8)

Kirkus Reviews