Hansel and Greta

by Jeanette Winterson, Laura Barrett (Illustrator)

Overview

Greta lives with her brother Hansel on the edge of a great forest - a forest in danger of destruction. GreedyGuts, their aunt, doesn't appreciate Hansel and Greta's plans to replant trees and save the forest. In fact, she thinks they're horrible little vegetarians. GreedyGuts doesn't give two hoots about nature. She favors luxury and living it up: eating, shopping and partying hard and so she hatches a plan to get rid of the meddling, do-gooder kids deep in the woods. With her trademark subversive and comic eye, Jeanette Winterson retells the classic tale of Hansel and Gretel.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781642596731
Publisher:	Haymarket Books
Publication date:	11/16/2021
Series:	Fairy Tale Revolution
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	4 MB
Age Range:	7 - 10 Years

About the Author

Jeanette Winterson was born in Manchester and spent her childhood in Accrington. She studied English at Oxford University. In 1985, she won the Whitbread First Novel Awards for Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. Her second novel, The Passion, won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in 1987, and was followed by Sexing the Cherry, which won the 1989 EM Forster Award. Her other works include The.PowerBook, Written on the Body, Arts and Lies, Boating for Beginners, The World and Other Places, and a collection of essays, Art Objects.

Editorial Reviews

A humorous, spellbinding fairy tale.”—Woman's Weekly

From the Publisher

★ 2021-09-24
“Hansel and Gretel” is reinvented for the modern age in this frolicsome retelling.

This refreshed take on the Grimms’ familiar story begins deep in the woods, like many a fairy tale might, only to diverge into a story of unusual resonance for today. Greta—whose name is an explicit homage to climate activist Greta Thunberg—lives with brother Hansel, their woodcutter father, and the horrifying, goblinlike Aunt GreedyGuts in a hut in the deep dark woods. However, the father tires of destroying the forest, and he and the children opt instead to make a life that seeks sustainability. Aunt GreedyGuts, whose unquenchable appetites are destructive, sets out to destroy not only this new way of life, but also the children themselves and the true-heartedness they represent. The children are banished to the woods as in the original tale, but instead of a wicked witch and her dangerous gingerbread house, they find a modern-day remedy to unsustainable consumption. It is possible that a children’s book about sustainability would be pedantic and moralistic. But instead, this one is funny, with clever, subversive, “larger-than-life silliness,” as Winterson explains in a concluding note. Fresh dialogue draws readers in, and the story’s twists and turns yield discoveries, like a wander through the woods. Illustrations present characters as black silhouettes, Greta sporting her namesake’s distinctive braids.

There are treasures to be found deep in the woods—and in this jewel box of a book. (Picture book. 11-14)

Kirkus Reviews