Hansel and Gretel

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What 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 This story has been ‘retold’ by Jane Ray. What does this mean? Can you find other stories that have been retold?

A peasant girl named Karen is adopted by a rich old lady after her mother’s death and grows up vain and spoiled. Before her adoption, Karen had a rough pair of red shoes; now she has her adoptive mother buy her a pair of red shoes fit for a princess. After Karen repeatedly wears them to church, they begin to move by themselves, but she is able to get them off. One day, when her adoptive mother becomes ill, Karen goes to a party in her red shoes. A mysterious soldier appears and makes strange remarks about what beautiful dancing shoes Karen has. Soon after, Karen’s shoes begin to move by themselves again, but this time they can’t come off. The shoes continue to dance, night and day, rain or shine, through fields and meadows, and through brambles and briers that tear at Karen’s limbs. She can’t even attend her adoptive mother’s funeral. An angel appears to her, bearing a sword, and condemns her to dance even after she dies, as a warning to vain children everywhere. Karen begs for mercy but the red shoes take her away before she hears the angel’s reply. Karen finds an executioner and asks him to chop off her feet. He does so but the shoes continue to dance, even with Karen’s amputated feet inside them. The executioner gives her a pair of wooden feet and crutches, and teaches her the criminals’ psalm. Thinking that she has suffered enough for the red shoes, Karen decides to go to church so people can see her. Yet her amputated feet, still in the red shoes, dance before her, barring the way. The following Sunday she tries again, thinking she is at least as good as the others in church, but again the dancing red shoes bar the way. Karen gets a job as a maid in the parsonage, but when Sunday comes she dares not go to church. Instead she sits alone at home and prays to God for help. The angel reappears, now bearing a spray of roses, and gives Karen the mercy she asked for: her heart becomes so filled with sunshine, peace, and joy that it bursts. Her soul flies on sunshine to Heaven, where no one mentions the red shoes. Wikipedia summary Not only that, Neil Gaiman portrays gut-wrenching emotion in the father. Counterintuitively, this is what makes this story feminist — a story in which women are not put on a pedestal as mothers, where women have only one representation: self-sacrificing and emotional. In stories, men are often allowed to be just men, even when they have children. They are not judged so much on how effective they are as fathers. In this story, however, the father is the parent with the nurturing instinct, and is at the mercy of his wife’s terrible decisions rather than the other way around. We won’t have gender equality until we have as many bad mothers as there are bad fathers, I guess. Food In Fairytales Watch different retellings of the story. How are they similar / different? Which do you prefer? Here is one example: Perry Nodelman in Words About Pictures finds the curved forms comforting as much as creepy, and speaks of the comfort of a predictable, oft-told tale:The billowing tree and off-kilter palings of the foreground fence remind me of similar techniques used by Mattotti in Hansel and Gretel. This way of drawing makes for a creepy vibe. That women who are over-the-top feminine — look at all the feminine accoutrements, signified by the colour pink — are over-the-top vain. The mirror adds to the impression of vanity, and we will subconsciously conjure up Snow White and the magic mirror in that tale. Anthony Browne's Hansel and Gretel, adapted from the translation by Eleanor Quarrie, has a distinctly contemporary feel. This is enhanced by the humorous illustrations: the woodcutter, for example, has a television set in his home, and the cruel stepmother, trips daintily along in high heels and a striking yellow coat, a cigarette hanging from her mouth. These help to bring a lighter note to this otherwise traditionally dark tale.

What do you associate red shoes with? Perhaps you associate them with the film version of The Wizard of Oz, in which the bad witch is squished under the house, her ruby slippers poking out?Oz Perkins’ Gretel & Hansel attempts to reimagine the folktale ‘Hansel & Gretel’ as an empowering coming of age story for its titular female heroine, complete with an ecoGothic stylistic flare. However, the film is just that: style over substance. While it seeks to, on the one hand, prioritise the feminist development of Gretel and, on the other, foreground its moody natural environment, it ultimately falls short on both counts. The overall result is a rather overwritten and poorly executed ‘girl power’ film which fails to unnerve or excite us with its ecoGothic aesthetic Folktale Failure: Gretel & Hansel by Shelby Carr By that I mean, they made it horribly patriarchal. And we’ve been using their version ever since, sweetening it up a little, but the basic patriarchal message is the same: Hansel and Gretel and Child Development When children defeat a witch in a fairy tale this signifies separation from mother — a necessary stage in psychic development. I did enjoy this story and found it evoked some very strong emotions. It is certainly worth reading to Key stage one or two children and would be a very good stimulus for a PSHE lessons on keeping safe, responsibilities and wellbeing. It would also provide plenty of opportunities for a philosophy for children lesson.

We have also been thinking about voicing our ideas through a debate. We have split into Team Hansel and Team Gretel to debate and decide which character can be regarded as the ultimate hero of the story. We evaluate arguments for and against each character using evidence from the text. Children then presented their debate and made their own decision.A retelling of this famous, dark fairytale from award-winning author-illustrator Anthony Browne. Hansel and Gretel is perhaps the darkest and greatest of the fairytales from the Brothers Grimm. This extraordinary book brings the classic childhood tale to a new generation courtesy of one of the world's greatest picture book artists, Hans Christian Andersen Award-winner Anthony Browne. About This Edition ISBN: George Devereaux, citing “Multatuli (1868),” pseudonym of novelist Edward Douwes Dekker, reports that during medieval famines and “even during the great postrevolutionary famine in Russia” the “actual eating of one’s children or the marketing of their flesh” occurred. He concludes that “the eating of children in times of food shortage is far from rare.” Voracious Children: Who eats whom in children’s literature Armistice Day: A Collection of Remembrance - Spark Interest and Educate Children about Historical Moments

Buy from our bookstore and 25% of the cover price will be given to a school of your choice to buy more books. *15% of eBooks. Home > 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. CANNIBALISMThe opponent was originally a mother, not a stepmother. The Grimm brothers obviously thought that having your blood mother turn on you was too scary. They did retain the shortened form of ‘mother’ in some passages though. Anthony Brown touchingly retells the story of a brother (Hansel) and sister (Gretel) whose penniless parents decide to abandon their children deep in the woods. Hungry and desperate the two children stumble upon a house made out of sweet treats and fall victim to a witch who entraps and eats children. Eventually the children are able to escape, steal the witch’s riches and return home to their remorseful father who tells them of their mother’s death and they all live happily ever after. Nodelman then mentions the art of Tim Burton, which has been replicated by subsequent animators in films such as Paranorman. Juliet Blake has the rights to turn this version of Hansel and Gretel into a film. (See Juliet Blake at IMDb, in which we learn the film stars Josh Hutcherson and Elle Fanning.) from Hansel & Gretel, Susan Jeffers- illustrator, pub. 1980 Anastasia Arkhipova – Hansel and Gretel COMPARE WITH For A Similar Art Style Anthony Browne is an internationally acclaimed author and illustrator of children's books with over forty titles to his name including Gorilla and Willy the Wimp. He was born in Yorkshire and studied graphic arts at Leeds Art College, working as a medical illustrator and an illustrator of greetings cards before his first book was published in 1976. He has gone on to win numerous awards including the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal and the Hans Christian Andersen Award.