If you’d like to hear “Hansel and Gretel” read aloud, I recommend the retellings by Parcast’s Tales podcast series. ( They have now moved over to Spotify.) These are ancient tales retold using contemporary English, complete with music and Foley effects. Some of these old tales are pretty hard to read, but the Tales podcast presents them in an easily digestible way. “Hansel” was published in two parts in January 2021. ‘Sweetened’ Versions of Hansel and Gretel

Eccleshare, Julia (28 July 2000). "Portrait of the artist as a gorilla. Interview: Anthony Browne". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 7 January 2008 . Retrieved 26 December 2007. Nodelman then mentions the art of Tim Burton, which has been replicated by subsequent animators in films such as Paranorman.

The sweetening of this tale started with the Grimm brothers, who needed to make money to support their collection hobby, so they rewrote some of the horrible tales into versions they considered appropriate for middle class children. Japanese Story With Similar Plot Points Shameless plug: Compare with our own retelling of a classic fairytale, Lotta: Red Riding Hood. Of course, there are many other modern retellings of fairytales, and like ours, many of them are written for young adults and above, as were the original tales. (I mean pre-Grimm. The Grimm brothers needed to raise money, so published old tales as children’s stories, because children’s stories are what sold.) WRITE YOUR OWN In Year 3, we have been enjoying reading Hansel and Gretel by Anthony Browne. We split the story into three parts; the beginning, the middle and the ending. We have discussed in small groups the features of a fairytale and how Browne’s version also includes these conventions. Note that the step-mother has not one but two mirrors in her bedroom, which is considered excessively vain, but apart from that, there’s the whole ‘witch/mother’ mirroring going on. CANNIBALISM

Use the speech within the text to create a play script. Could you perform this with some friends or use puppets? Flood, Alison (9 June 2009). "Gorilla artist Anthony Browne becomes children's laureate". The Guardian. She is not a good housewife (when the implication is that a good housewife is also a good mother, and that being a good housekeeper is the job of the woman. Armistice Day: A Collection of Remembrance - Spark Interest and Educate Children about Historical MomentsWhat might an ameliorated, more socially just version of your tale look like? Like Gaiman’s Hansel and Gretel, it may be quite similar to the classic version, but with a few details altered. SEE ALSO Art Nouveau German Childrens Book Hänschen im Blaubeerenwald Art Nouveau German Childrens Book Hänschen im Blaubeerenwald Art Nouveau German Childrens Book Hänschen im Blaubeerenwald Willard […] sees the children’s home (or mother’s body) as a place that becomes hostile to them, expelling them into the forest and denying them food. They try to return but are rejected and thrust out to fend for themselves. The children find a house in the woods that appears to offer them what they desire (a return to the mother’s body) but it turns out to be a trap. Thus “the dangers of returning home are clearly outlined.” The children, Willard argues, must deal with the image of the split mother so that they can attain “a fully integrated image of the mother”. They do this by committing matricide, an act which Kristeva argues is the clearest path to autonomy. By killing the witch/bad mother, the children are free to return to their father, but they take with them the “best parts” of the split mother figure, symbolically represented by the jewels. […] The symbolism of food and the theme of eating (including cannibalism) in the story have profound psychic resonances with infantile anxieties relating to the mother which is arguably why the story continues to be popular. Voracious Children: Who eats whom in children’s literature The Role Of The Father and ‘Mothers In Fridges’? Hans Christian Andersen Awards". International Board on Books for Young People ( IBBY). Retrieved 23 July 2013.