Hansel and Gretel

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.

Rating: 3.22 leaves out of 5-Characters: 3/5 -Cover: 4/5-Story: 3/5-Writing: 5/5Genre: Fantasy, Classic, Children-Fantasy: 5/5-Classic: 5/5-Children: 4/5Type: EbookWorth?: YesHated Disliked Meh It Was Okay Liked Loved FavoritedWant to thank Netgalley and publishers for giving me the chance to read this book.Hansel and Gretel was always an odd tale to me but as I got older the old lady just scary as hell. Even more so was realizing the reason for them to ditch their kids in the woods... thinking they would have more of a fighting chance to survive. That in itself is a nightmare. As for Neil Gaiman's version... he didn't bring much to the table that hasn't already been brought. It is a good story no less but if you are going to do a retelling don't do it in a way that your story blends in with the hundred of others that have retold the story before you.