Rated "Indifferent" in our old book database. ( )

Independent Reading Level: 2nd-5th grade.
Awards: Newbery and Carnegie Medals, World Fantasy Award, etc.

Am in two minds about this book - whilst I normally adore Neil Gaiman's style of writing (and have adored his other recent fairy tale retelling in The Sleeper and The Spindle), I cannot immediately tell which part is Gaiman and which isnt.

Meanwhile, the illustrations are fabulous, in strong black and white (it says it's ink, but I would say it was charcoal), with figures in silhouette rather than full definition. The telling is traditional, with little variation from the Grimm's fairy tale - Hansel and Gretel are left in the woods by their parents, who are running low on food after a period of war and famine. The first time, they make their way back to their home, after Hansel has the foresight to load his pockets with white stones to mark their way. The second time Hansel doesn't have the time to gather the stones, and his bread is eaten by the birds before they find their way home.

The siblings, already starving, find their way to a house made of gingerbread, where an old woman lives. She captures both children, locks Hansel in a cage in order to fatten him up, and chains Gretel to the table for her to do housework. The woman struggles to see, and fails to realise that Hansel is getting fatter, but uses a bone when she feels his finger to find out how fat he is getting. Gretel uses her brains, and when the witch wants to roast both of them for her dinner, Gretel pushes her into the hot oven.

The two children escape home, with lots of loot from the witch's house, and find their mother (the one who insisted they were to be "lost" in the woods) has died not long after their disappearance.

All the standards are there: the trail back home , the gingerbread house, death by roasting...is this my favourite Neil Gaiman? Not convinced. Is it a wonderful hardback addition to the collection of books-with-pictures? Oh yes indeedie

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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WHAT'S HANSEL AND GRETEL ABOUT?
This is the story of Hansel and Gretel almost straight from the Brothers Grimm—given a quick shine by Gaiman. There's nothing particularly Gaiman-esque about the writing or the approach to the story. It's a pretty decent and straightforward approach to the story.

THE ART
In the spirit of "If you can't say anything nice....", I'm tempted to leave a few lines of blank space here and move on. I don't get it. Really. I just don't understand what Mattotti was going for here. The pictures are spread over two pages, and most of those pages are black. There are bits of white to help you get an image or the shadow of an image, but again—it's just black. The kind of black that would've threatened to bankrupt printers just a couple of decades ago.

Maybe a quarter to a third of each two-page spread was interesting—but the rest. Ugh.

Call me a Philistine here...but I just don't see why someone would bother.

I've looked at Mattotti's website, and I like a lot of what I saw there...but this was a swing and a miss.

SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT HANSEL AND GRETEL?
So, the text was okay. The art was disappointing. Overall, I give this a "meh." If this were a person's first exposure to the story—it'd work well. And honestly, if that's what someone uses it for—I'd probably rate this higher.

But for someone wanting a little bit of that Gaiman magic applied to this familiar tale? It just doesn't deliver. ( )

Il giorno si spense e venne il crepuscolo, e le ombre strisciarono fuori da sotto ogni albero: prima fecero pozze e poi laghi di nero, finché il mondo non si trasformò in un'unica ombra immensa.
(senza numero pagina) ( )