The True Story of Hansel and Gretel

Louise Murphy

This one.  Students love this one. 

Best Parents - the parents, all of them, in the True Story of Hansel and Gretel.  The choices that the parents in that book make to save thier chidren, heart wrenching.

 

Worst Parents - Pick almost any tale in Grimm.  Parents want to eat thier children, want to sell children to the devil, molest their children and so on.

NO SPOILERS!!!

Look at the title of this book. It tells exactly what you will get from this book! Hansel and Gretel is a fairy tale, this is that fairy tale rewritten for adults. I had been warned by reading numerous reviews that this would be a dark tale. I had no idea it would be so very dark. Don't take my words lightly, I warned you! Some reviewers state that the evil is too gruesome, too overboard. I do not make this criticism. Why? Well, because as a child, when we are told fairy tales, we are petrified. Now this is a fairy tale for adults. Shouldn't we be truly scared? Shouldn't we be shocked? And yet it has all the ingredients of a fairy tale; there is evil and there is goodness. And how do fairy tales end? The very juxtaposition of the brutal, horrible evil next to the wonderful truly feels like a fairy tale. The author has fulfilled her goal perfectly!

I will give you and example of beauty and wonder alongside brutality and horror:

The sleet covering the forest had frozen into ice on everything she saw.

She walked toward the creek carrying the bucket. The snow was covered with a thick crust of ice that crackled under each footstep. Her foot sunk a few inches, but the snow was so frozen and her weight so slight that she walked over the deep snow as if she had on snow-shoes…..

Standing up, she broke off a twig from a limb and stared at it. The black of the twig was enclosed in a thick layer of transparent ice. She sucked it and the hardness of the ice grew even smoother in the warmth of her mouth. Every branch, every twig, was coated in a thin layer of pure; clear ice. The entire world was diamond-coated. There was an occasional rainbow high up in the trees or in the snow, a patch of color, the sun caught in the ice as in a prism. (43% of the book)

Gretel and her brother Hansel have lost their father and step-mother. They have found their witch in the Polish forests. They have escaped the Bialystok ghetto, but they are so hungry. They are so thin and cold. This is what is referred to when in the quote above where it is said she is "slight". When Hansel dropped the bread crumbs, in the hope that these crumbs would lead their parents back to them, these are not just any crumbs. These crumbs were their sole food. You feel all of this when you read the above sentences. The starving children and the beautiful, glorious forest after an ice storm are juxtaposed. It would be a spoiler if I were to tell you what happens after this glorious ice storm. All throughout the tale beauty and horror nudge each other.

All the historical facts of a biography about Polish children during WW2 are present: the Poles hatred of the Germans and their fear of the Russians. It is not only the Jews who are discriminated against; don't forget the plight of the gypsies. There are rebels hiding in the Bialowieza Forest. So this fairy tale for adults also gives a correct portrayal of Polish events.

The way the story is told, the words the author chooses makes you recognize the tone of a fairy tale. The children remain children, one minute twirling with the abandon of a child and the next revealing the imprint the war has left on them. This is a very moving, well told story. Just as most fairy tales have an important truth to tell; this one does too.

To determine if you should read this book, ask yourself if you really are up to an adult fairy tale……..

What a beautiful read. I must say I had a difficult time with this book though. I thought reading Those Who Save Us was difficult. This book was more difficult for me because it involved Jewish children during WWII Poland. In my opinion, it is a must read.