Hansel and Gretel

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The Brothers Grimm wrote the original fairy tale. Can you find out what other stories they wrote? If you could interview them today, what questions would you like to ask them? But if Millions of Cats is comfortingly secure, it is not just because it emphasizes shape over line, pattern over energy; it is also because the shapes happen to be primarily rounded and curved ones—the sort of shapes we associate with softness and yielding. Such associations have an obvious effect on our attitudes to pictures.

Daniels further explains the double/duplicitous/split nature of the (step)mother/witch with the help of some 20th C psychoanalysis: We have also retold sections of the story using drama. Children have had opportunities to play some of the key characters; Hansel, Gretel, Father, Stepmother (also the Witch) and Narrator. We firstly planned which pieces of language from the text we wanted to include and then performed in groups in front of the class. We enjoyed linking the parts of the story together What do you associate red shoes with? Perhaps you associate them with the film version of The Wizard of Oz, in which the bad witch is squished under the house, her ruby slippers poking out? Illustrations really helped with this spooky tale, really enjoyed the ending where the children found their home and father waiting for them. Has with most Anthony Browne books the illustrations are quirky and quite different however, forms a lot of talk and discussion points that you could have with a class of children. Let’s face it: The tale itself is basically terrifying. Anthony Browne, with his postmodern approach to its retelling, does not shy away from the terror. Later, Neil Gaiman and Lorenzo Matotti created an even darker version.Juliet Blake has the rights to turn this version of Hansel and Gretel into a film. (See Juliet Blake at IMDb, in which we learn the film stars Josh Hutcherson and Elle Fanning.) from Hansel & Gretel, Susan Jeffers- illustrator, pub. 1980 Anastasia Arkhipova – Hansel and Gretel COMPARE WITH For A Similar Art Style Bruno Bettelheim [who was a total asshole, by the way — I can’t write about him without slipping that in there] considers “Hansel and Gretel” to be a tale about a child’s inappropriate oral aggression, that “gives body to the anxieties and learning tasks of the young child who must overcome and sublimate his primitive incorporative and thus destructive desires.” But it is noteworthy that in this tale the children are orally nonaggressive. They do break off pieces of the house and “nibble” them but then they are about to “perish of hunger and exhaustion” (Grimms.) It is the witch who is aggressive and cannibalistic, but Bettelheim does not discuss this. Voracious Children: Who eats whom in children’s literature

It is interesting to consider the ending of the tale in terms of psychoanalytic notions of child development. The children’s task is to escape the clutches of the devouring mother and to proceed from the oral phase to the oedipal stage and a meaningful relationship with their father. They live in her house for a month while she feeds Hansel on “the very best food” and waits for him to get fatter. Hansel, then, partakes of the good breast while Gretel, who “got nothing but grab shells” to eat, is denied it. They are clearly in the oral, pre-oedipal phase. By threatening to eat Hansel, the witch/bad mother clearly intends to incorporate and psychically obliterate him. Gretel kills the witch/bad mother by pushing her into the oven so that she is “miserably burned to death”. The threat of incorporation she poses is thus neutralized. She is not a good housewife (when the implication is that a good housewife is also a good mother, and that being a good housekeeper is the job of the woman. Anthony Browne has often illustrated Hansel and Gretel to be looking away from the reader, this allows the reader to experience what the characters are feeling and put their emotions in the place of the characters. What does the Cat, Dove and Snow White bird signify? Or the white pebbles? What does the colour white represent? (Chance of hope and happiness, sense of innocence)

Billy worries about so many things, like hats and rain and giant birds, that it keeps him awake at night. His Grandma comes up with an ideal solution - worry dolls to do Billy's worrying for him. Soon Billy is able to use his own resourcefulness to overcome his problem. This simple story from a former Children's Laureate is beautifully told and will reassure… Is there a classic tale from your childhood which feel to you like some parts are missing? Perhaps one character doesn’t get a fair deal. I often feel that way about female characters in fairytales when retold by Perrault and Grimm; in the Victorian era, women were ideally stupid and innocent. Around this time step-mothers started to become most vilified. Beautiful people are portrayed to be good; ugly people are bad.