The famous fairy tale/story, hello to Hansel and Gretel. But now totally flipped over and totally different. I laughed myself silly!

I am just so enjoying Bethan Woollvin’s retellings of fairy tales. So when I saw this book in the library I just HAD to bring it along with me because I knew it would be a hoot. I was curious to see what Bethan Woollvin did of this fairy tale. What would have been flipped?

Well, she really threw this whole story in the washing machine and flopped and flipped it over. Everyone knows the story of Hansel and Gretel, two kids who have been sent away by their stepmom because reasons and so come across an evil witch. Well, after this book and with this story in mind, I could understand very well that the stepmother (and probably also dad) send the kids away. Where Hans and Gretel were the sweetest kids that just wanted happiness in the original story in here they are menaces, brats, annoyances. Very naughty. No manners. Do their own thing no matter what. Eating that house for instance sounded in the OG story as naughty already, but what if the witch kindly asked them not to do it because it was her only home? Or seeing them do magic spells with the wand and spellbook of the witch while she is asking them oh so kindly not to do that. She tries to keep calm. Because this witch is a good witch. Good witches don’t do bad things. The chaos gets bigger and bigger with each new page and I was really wondering how long it would take for the witch to go back to her bad witch side. I really found her patience magical, I wouldn’t have been that calm. My ADHD would have reared its head and roared like a lion at these kids.

The ending was a total delight and one I didn’t see coming (I expected a lot but not this) but which I found very fitting and I loved it. Karma. As we say in Dutch: “Boontje komt om zijn loontje.”. I won’t spoil much, but this was great!

The illustrations were fabulous as well!

All in all, I would highly recommend this delightful book to all! It is a really fun flip/twist to the original story. I am looking forward to more of this writer’s retellings.