FINISHED:
Gidwitz, Adam. (2010). A tale dark & Grimm. New York: Dutton/Penguin.

[[Reviewed from ARC.] Not your standard Hansel and Gretel retelling, the twin siblings wander their way through a series of “adventures” that are actually riffs on other Grimm’s tales, always hoping to find a good home where they will be taken care of by a good parent. Initially, the pair runaway when they hear that they may be sacrificed by their noble parents in order to save the life of a long-faithful servant, and then find themselves living with a man and woman who seem to have wished their seven sons into birds. The siblings are eventually separated, and Gretel gets caught up with a mysterious (murdering) stranger, while Hansel, after being cut out of the body of a beast, travels to Hell in order to steal three golden hairs from the head of the Devil (which plays out like a scene from Red Riding Hood). The stories are told in the detached and repetitive style of classic fairytales (“’Terrible,’ said the man with the beard. ‘Terrible,’ said the tall man. ‘Terrible,’ said the woman.”) allowing the frequent, contemporary author interjections to stand out and take on a more animated tone. Each chapter acts as a self-contained tale within the larger story, beginning with “Once upon a time…” and concluding with “The End” (although it is more often than not followed by “Almost…”). Indeed, in this, his debut novel, Gidwitz has taken numerous liberties with the Grimm canon, mixing and matching tales while adding his own slant/perspective. Some make take issue with Gidwitz remarking in the introduction, “Once upon a time, fairy tales were awesome. So why are all the versions of the stories you’ve heard so mind-numbingly boring?”, but his point is just that we have Disney-ized classic stories and taken out all of the juicy, gross, brutal parts that older children might revel in.]

STARTED:
Funke, Cornelia. (2010). Reckless. New York: Little, Brown & Company.

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