Hansel and Gretel

It's good to have this now classic version in paperback edition. I hope that the squashed nature of the text doesn't put anyone off. For I now want children and teachers to ponder together what happens when the childhood tale of loss, fear and vulnerability of children is put in a modern setting. In now see the woodcutter and his family as starkly unemployed eighties-style. Get eights to elevens talking as to why we see so much of the tale through a mirror in the early stages. Try getting them to tell the story without reading the text to show how a television artist like Browne makes the characters and the action means things. I read a class of top juniors altentative versions: the fact that the Disneyesque Prince has disappeared from this telling means that Gretel can play an active role in the conclusion.... As man copies as our can afford for the classroom, and lots for the bookshop.