by Adam Gidwitz
2010
An amalgamation of Grimm tales, using Hansel and Gretel as the
protagonist for nearly all. The brother and sister, here the children
of a king a queen, run away from home after discovering their parents
have committed a crime against them (though they don’t know the whole
story). They arrive at the well-known candy house of the child-eating
witch, but when that story ends, their adventures continue, in
adaptations of “Brother And Sister” (in which the brother turns into a
beast of the forest), “The Devil And His Grandmother,” “The Seven
Ravens,” and others. Throughout, Gidwitz inserts his authorical voice
to comment, using an ironically exaggerated concerned tone for “little
kids” and their delicate sensibilities, warning of gory sections in the
book; he also breaks into the story to lecture about bravery and
forgiveness and coming through troubles as a better person.
It’s a
well-done conceit, this consolidation of several Grimm tales into one
shakily linear plot with an over-arching challenge and a resolution.
Gidwitz reshapes the stories into suspenseful tales, in which both girl
and boy are heroic and brave. I do think he over-uses the third-wall
narrative device a bit, but older kids probably enjoy being addressed
directly as if over the heads of younger ones. I read this to see if it
could be a read-aloud in my class; the answer is unequivocally no. The
author is a teacher of first and second graders and seems to think his
tales are appropriate for them; I might even give a pass on the gore and
violence (some of which is directed at children), but there’s a couple
of rather creepy scenes – an evil, charismatic man whom Gretel has a
crush on sucks the blood off of her head wound, for example. Yes, so I
wouldn’t read this to fourth graders in a school. For older kids and
adults, though, it’s a pretty clever horror/morality tale.
four stars
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