Hansel and Gretel

There’s a menacing feel to this combination of best selling author, Stephen King’s, Grimm story interpretation and the late Maurice Sendak’s images, originally created for an Engelbert Humperdink opera. Here the siblings, Hansel and Gretel are abandoned in the woods by their evil stepmother and after three days of wandering, reach a candy cottage belonging to an evil witch. They survive her plans to eat them, escape, eventually become reunited with their father and then comes their fairytale ‘happily ever after’ ending.

Sendak’s artwork is immediately recognisable; here it’s gloomy and full of dark images: the three wailing children in a basket who have been kidnapped by a wicked witch riding a broomstick; the branch-like arms protruding from the ‘cosy little cottage’ of Rhea, the old, child-stealing witch whom Hansel had seen in his dream and whose face changes from kindly to evil. Such representations really give the reader goose bumps. Moreover, said witch tosses insults at Gretel such as, ‘Idiot child! You wouldn’t know down from up or hot from cold!’

This might at first glance look like a children’s book but King’s long text is very dense for young readers and seems far more appropriate for adults, especially fans of the author. The stuff of nightmares this!