As if Hansel and Gretel didn’t already have it tough in their original fairy tale, Gidwitz retrofits a handful of other obscure Grimm stories and casts the siblings as heroes. Connecting the dots, he crafts a narrative that has the twins beheaded (and reheaded, thankfully), dismembered, hunted, killed, brought back to life, sent to hell, and a number of other terrible fates en route to their happily ever after.
(Amazon.com)
Genre: fantasy
Rating: 4/5
Note: 3 of Once Upon a Read-a-Thon
Much more suited for middle school age, Gidwitz takes the bloodier and stranger Grimm's fairy tales and ties them together using Hansel and Gretel as the protagonists. His interruptions as narrator are cute, though sometimes a bit heavy handed. The main question is always "are they no good parents left in the world?" Well, not here, though Hansel and Gretel's parents redeem themselves and reinforce the fact that while children sometimes don't understand why their parents do some things, that does not necessarily make all adults evil.
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