Hansel and Gretel: a beautiful illustrated version of the classic fairytale

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I want to award Gaiman's retelling a high rating, but it's not Gaiman's story. He hasn't made it his own like he did by adding a feminist twist to Sleeping Beauty. Sure, it's been reworded, and feels smoother and more eloquent for it, but there isn't any one thing I can definitively point to that sets it apart from the original. For me, the sometimes inarticulate illustrations detracted from the reading experience, as I sat there trying to figure out what exactly I was looking at. I felt they were incongruous and would've been better placed in art book or a gallery wall where I could've appreciated them more.

Hansel and Gretel - Bloomsbury Publishing

This story has been ‘retold’ by Jane Ray. What does this mean? Can you find other stories that have been retold? In the beginning there was a woodcarver and his pretty wife and their two children. Times were good and once in a while the family, though never rich, would get a bite of meat. Then the wars came and the famine. Food became so scarce that the wife persuaded her husband to abandon their children in the woods. The first time he tried to do so he failed. The second time he succeeded. And when Hansel and Gretel, the children in question, spotted that gingerbread cottage with its barley sugar windows and hard candy decorations the rest, as they say, was history. Complement it with Gaiman on why scary stories appeal to us, Tolkien on the psychology of fairy tales, and the best illustrations of the Brothers Grimm tales. For more of Mattotti’s enchanting art, see his visual interpretation of Edgar Allan Poe. I love Gaiman’s and Mattotti’s Hansel & Gretel. The writing is rich. (“They went so deep into the old forest that the sunlight was stained green by the leaves.”) And the art is striking. I have never seen a more chill-inducing rendition of the witch’s gingerbread cottage. I swear it looks like there’s a skull atop it.”— Julie Danielson, Seven Impossible Things Before BreakfastGaiman did a splendid job when he retold Sleeping Beauty ( The Sleeper and the Spindle) so I was excited at the idea of another classic being twisted by his mind. Grimms' Hansel and Gretel was published in 1812. Twelve year old Dorothea Wild, known as Dortchen, was the source of the tale. She later became Mrs Wilhelm Grimm in 1825.

Hansel and Gretel: A TOON Graphic by Neil Gaiman, Lorenzo Hansel and Gretel: A TOON Graphic by Neil Gaiman, Lorenzo

Best-selling author Neil Gaiman and fine artist Lorenzo Mattotti join forces to create Hansel & Gretel, a stunning book that’s at once as familiar as a dream and as evocative as a nightmare. Mattotti’s sweeping ink illustrations capture the terror and longing found in the classic Brothers Grimm fairy tale. Gaiman crafts an original text filled with his signature wit and pathos that is sure to become a favorite of readers everywhere, young and old.

More traditional fairy tale resources from Twinkl Originals

Be warned, Gaiman doesn't really rework Hansel and Gretel like he did with Sleeping Beauty, he just enlarges on it, adding minor changes along the way. Oddly I enjoyed this story more than any other by Gaiman, which probably tells you more about how much I like, or dislike, his work than anything else. In the years that followed, Hansel and Gretel each married well, and the people who went to their weddings ate so much fine food that their belts burst and the fat from the meat ran down their chins, while the pale moon looked down kindly on them all.”