Hansel And Gretel/The Witch's Story

by Sheila Black

While the old woman in this story was certainly a witch, the Upside Down version offers the explanation that she was a good witch, and her friendly offer of fresh-baked apple cake to naughty Hansel and Gretel led her into a hot oven for her kindness. Illustrated in full color.

Genres: Childrens

32 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Sheila Black, an American poet, has written over 40 books for children and young adults as well as four poetry collections.

Reviews

[BRNTerri · Rating 5 out of 5]

SPOILERS- Sheila Black's version of Hansel and Gretel is basically the same as the original, so I liked it a lot, as well as the full color illustrations. I really liked The Witch's Story, where the witch, Agatha, paints herself as a victim of Hansel and Gretel when they showed up on her property and started eating her house.

Agatha lives with her gray cat, Selina, and claims the two children tied her up to put her in the oven to bake her after she let them in the house with an offer of baking them an apple cake. Her sister Tabitha shows up and works some magic with her wand and rescues her sister. Hansel tells Gretel he knows the witch plans to eat them because he read it in a book. What a clever thing to add to the story. They get along in the end. The witch waves her magic wand and their pockets are filled with jewels. That reminds me of the Charles Perrault story The Fairies , where a fairy makes jewels come out of a girls mouth.

Here are three images from the book.