Nibble Nibble Mousekin

Here’s a funny thing about blogging. (Just one funny thing, Melissa? There are SO MANY FUNNY THINGS. Really. When someone makes a college course about the art of blogging & related media studies, that will be the best class ever. I will go back to college just to take that class.) Anyway, I plan most of my posts out, sometimes weeks and months in advance, the ones pertaining to the books. I just realized that what I’m trying to say isn’t funny at all and I’m having some kind of problem today. I took pix of ‘Nibble Nibble Mousekin, A Tale of Hansel and Gretel’, by Joan Walsh Anglund, last fall and now here we are, looking at my pix. TOTALLY FUNNY RIGHT????

We’re going to be gingerbreading for the remainder of the week. If you aren’t keen on gingerbread, well, despair all ye who enter here. (Also there is something not right with you. I’m only a little judgmental on the topic. I LOVE GINGERBREAD.)

The ultimate gingerbread house is in ‘Hansel and Gretel’. RIGHT?? And there’s a particularly great depiction of the witch’s gingerbread house in this version. Ok here’s more funny story. I saw this in a used bookstore, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted it (I was having a crazy moment) so I hid it behind several other books on the same shelf and hoped it would be there when I came back. Did I not have my wallet? Had I gone insane? Did I need to go to the bathroom? I cannot for the life of me remember why there was all this book hiding going on and why I just didn’t get it immediately. But I did get it because here it is.

I don’t even remember going back to get it. I swear I’m not lying. Maybe aliens put me under and erased my memory and then bought me the book.


GREAT gingerbread house right??

There’s like a million versions of every fairy tale, but some stand out. Hansel and Gretel, to me, is a SCARIER THAN CRAP STORY. Roasting children, eating them, being abandoned to die alone in the woods…this is a scary scary story, when boiled down to the fundamentals. I really get freaked out by this story even as an adult.

But here’s what I love about the Anglund book. This version has a good amount of text, so slightly older kids will appreciate it. The art is really really engaging and fairy tale-esque, without being too dark. I think the art style tempers the dark themes, which for this fairy tale, I’m telling you, I just think the witch is SO SCARY. Don’t you think? I needed a version like this. Interesting, fun, true to the story, but without making you pee in your pants. Am I the only one terrified by the witch? It’s all the oven business.


As usual, I seriously have no idea what I'm saying today. This is a fabulous version of a classic fairy tale, and if you are looking to have a permanent copy of Hansel and Gretel on your shelves, this is one of the best I've seen. The other one I feel strongly about is the version by Emma Chichester Clark and the adaptation by Cynthia Rylant/Jen Corace.

Witches scare me. Also aliens. I'll tell you guys later about an alien movie that had me afraid of telephone repairmen. I wish I were making this up, but no I really am like this.