Brothers Grimm (text) & Sybille Schenker (illustrations)translated from German by Martin West(Minedition) If the Hansel and Gretel Week has allowed me to indulge in my love for fairy tale retellings, it has also allowed me to discover a brand new and unbelievably talented illustrator and her astonishing book: Sybille Schenker’s Hansel and Gretel is first and …
Hansel and Gretel
HANSEL & GRETEL WEEK (4): Hansel and Gretel
Anthony Browne(Walker Books) If the other versions of Hansel and Gretel I have presented so far very much had a sense of place, this adaptation by previous Children’s Laureate Anthony Browne conveys a very strong sense of time. First published in 1981, this book depicts rather bleak elements of society at the time: the unemployment, the poverty, possibly …
HANSEL & GRETEL WEEK (3): Hansel & Gretel: a Pop-Up
Louise Rowe(Tango Books) This pop-up version of Hansel and Gretel is so visually stunning that you will find yourself studying the pop-up scenes, taking in the intricate paper engineering and astounding attention to detail and totally forgetting about the text at first. The book only has six pop-up scenes and Louise Rowe has carefully chosen which parts of the story …
HANSEL & GRETEL WEEK (2): Hansel and Gretel
Michael Morpurgo (text) & Emma Chichester Clark (illustrations)(Walker Books) This beautiful version of Hansel and Gretel is retold by former Children’s Laureate and award-winning author Michael Morpurgo and he has certainly put his stamp on this traditional tale. Here, he weaves a story based on courage, hope, survival undying love, and battling envy and cruelty. He brings a refreshing twist to the tale, …
HANSEL & GRETEL WEEK (1): Sweetly
Jackson Pearce(Hodder Children’s Books) When they were children , Gretchen’s identical twin sister was snatched while they and older brother Ansel were walking in the forest. Nobody knows what happened to her, but Gretchen vividly remembers being hunted by something big with yellow eyes and has always assumed it was the witch that, according to legend, lived around …
The Wide-Awake Princess
E.D. Baker(Bloomsbury Children’s Books) What if Sleeping Beauty wasn’t an only child? What if she had a younger sister whose only gift from the fairies was that she could not be touched by magic, and that in fact magic recoiled from her? Princess Annabelle has not had a great childhood; her family hold a distance …