"It takes a lot more time for anything to grow than it does for anything to be chopped down."

In this retelling, H&G's woodcutter father is a reluctant logger who sees the light, quits, and then his sister-in-law GreedyGuts (the kids' aunt, actually an ogre) is enraged. The kids manage to reunite a sapling with its witch, who does live in a gingerbread house, but in a city. Trees good, consumerism bad! A definite Greta Thunberg flavor of tale, and much better than I'm making it sound here. ( )

When I saw that Winter son wrote a children's book, I just had to see how this would turn out. An old fairy tale taken place in modern times. Yes, there is a woodcutter with two motherless children, but he is a wood cutter with an environmental conscience. This consciousness would have many consequences. There is no wicked stepmother but a supposed aunt called Greedyguts, who eats everything in sight. Very prodigious appetite. She is wicked though and it is she who sends the children to the forest.

There is a young tree that can walk and a witch who travels by vacuum cleaner as brooms are an outmoded source of travel. The story takes many twists and turns not seen in the original. Putting my self in a much younger frame of mind, not always easy, but I do think a seven or eight year old would find this entertaining. Very different but also unique and imaginative.

ARC from Edelweiss. ( )