The True Story of Hansel and Gretel

Rating:
Summary: Good historical fiction
Review: All of the elements of the fairy tale are present in this story, but play a minor role. The story is primarily about a Polish village occupied by the Germans during WWII, and how two small children and their father and stepmother try to survive until the Russians drive the Germans out. The story and its ending are not happy, but the characters are so well developed that you keep reading to find out what happens to them. The descriptions of the forest do make it seem to be a magical, fairy-tale like place. Very well written - a page turner.

Rating:
Summary: Moving, lovely prose
Review: Despite some predictable plot turns, this book is beautifully written. The author is an accomplished poet & it shows in her prose. One particularly poignant passage brought me to tears (a very rare occurrance). This book has great depth, yet is very readable on any level. I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Moving, lovely prose
Review: Despite some predictable plot turns, this book is beautifully written. The author is an accomplished poet & it shows in her prose. One particularly poignant passage brought me to tears (a very rare occurrance). This book has great depth, yet is very readable on any level. I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Words cannot describe the feelings this book gave me¿
Review: Every child knows the story of Hansel and Gretel, the two children abandoned in the woods by their father and evil stepmother, who eventually discover the witch's hut. What if the story was real? In this incredible novel by Louise Murphy the story is changed slightly, but the main elements are still there: the evil stepmother, the bread crumbs, the "witch". Hansel and Gretel aren't the real names of the two Jewish children who are left in the woods during WWII by a desperate father and stepmother trying to flee the Nazis. Their real names must remain secret, so the young children will be hopefully be taken in and suspected to be Christian. The first person they come upon in the woods is Magda, a midwife who lives alone in the hut near a village. Magda is suspected to be a witch by the villagers and the children alike, but she agrees to take them in and feed them despite their fears. As the war nears its' end, we see how the Nazis stationed in the nearby village frantically try to keep control of the villagers and remain true to their goals of wiping out "undesirables". Madga suspects the children are Jews, but has vowed to keep them safe at all costs. The wonderful weaving of the main themes of Hansel and Gretel with a survival story during WWII makes for a simply amazing read. The one minor problem I had was that ending didn't wrap up everything as well as I would have liked. Otherwise, a unique work that I urge you to read.

Rating:
Summary: Great Read
Review: I found this book to be very good. My definition of good is it kept my intrest, I couldn't wait to find out what happens and I felt like I was there. Louise Murphy wrote a dark story, but I think there was elements of unselfishness and understanding that many families, however they are composed face. I fell in love with Magda, the grandmother, maybe because she reminds me of my own, but what she goes though and utimiately gives up for Hansel and Gretel is tremendous. The book also shows the SS as the cowards that they were.

Rating:
Summary: A Fairy Tale Story of a Not So Fairy Tale Truth
Review: I had not heard of this book until I came across it at a bookstore. I must admit the title intrigued me to pick it up and read its jacket. Without sounding morbid, I do not think I would have bought this book if it wasn't about the Holocaust. The evil of WWII is still too much to fathom, which is why I beleive story's like Miss Murphy's should always be so that it will never be forgotten as well as never repeated. Miss Murphy's book told the tale of good as well as evil. I enjoyed this book because the story was of two children and a woman, the 'witch', who sacrificed all for the sake of the children. Isn't that the way it should be? I found the writing to be rather profound at times and the children to be incredible brave. I liked the main characters and how their motivations differed from the fable. I liked how Miss Murphy incorporated the fable as well as how she twisted the fable. A great read and a fast read. So often the Holocaust tells of the Nazis. This book tells of people and most importantly the children.

Rating:
Summary: capturing
Review: I have always been a rebel against the fairytales where the men always rescue a helpless princess, the dragon gets slain, the stepmother is evil, and the 'good' wind up rich in the end. So when I walked into the store and saw 'The True Story of Hansel and Gretel' I was compelled to give the well known story of a selfish stepmother and foolish children another try.
Once I turned the first page I was caught up in a story that I knew was not all fairytale. The book takes place in the last months of the Nazi occupation of Poland. The children are abandoned in a forest to find safety, and have to give up their Jewish names for Hansel and Gretel. The children stumble upon Magda, who the villagers refer to as ' the witch'. She takes them in and is determined to save them from the Germans controlling the village. Meanwhile the story flashes back to the father and the stepmother as they struggle to survive. I wouldn't or couldn't put this book down until I was finished. The book followed the tale of Hansel and Gretel, but is far from the sugar-coated version told to children.
Louise Murphy has a talent of making people come alive to the reader. Although the outcome of the book is not the one of money and happiness, the pages turned quickly as the plot twisted and captured me more by the second. I would recommend this book to people who want to know what the holocaust really was all about, not just the evil of the Nazis, but the people who had the will to live through it.

Rating:
Summary: READ IT
Review: Im not a writer but this Louise Murphy is......
I cant convey how good this one was, its truly worht reading tonight!
great retelling of hansel and gretel ,with the Nazi's as the wolf.
its much more than it appears to be. a great read.

Rating:
Summary: eye opening
Review: This is a beautifully written book, and I recommend it highly to all fans of literary fairy tale retellings. My only quibble is with the reviews more than with the book, which fail to mention that Murphy's idea is not an original one. This book follows in the footsteps of Briar Rose by Jane Yolen (1992) which uses the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale to tell a story about War World II Holocaust victims in Poland, and Lisa Goldstein's story "Breadcrumbs and Stones" (in the anthology Snow White, Blood Red, 1993) which uses the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale (as Murphy does here) to tell a story about the Holocaust. Also, there's Peter Rushford's novel Kindergarten, now sadly out of print, which uses a number of Grimms fairy tales to tell a story not only about the Holocaust but also about more recent acts of European terrorism. I welcome Murphy's book into this tradition -- it's a fine addition and it's always good to see what new writers can do with fairy tales. But I do believe the reviewers are lax here not to review this book in its proper context.

Rating:
Summary: An extraordinary retelling of an old familiar tale
Review: What a compelling read. In many ways, I found The True Story of Hansel and Gretel to be like encountering a train wreck. So many of the things that happened to the characters were horrific -- yet I couldn't look away.

Louise Murphy gives us the Witch as a good woman with Romani heritage and gypsy knowledge -- shadowed by the evil context in which people have always tried to place those whose knowledge and ways are different, therefore, threatening. The innocence of the children -- and how it is peeled away like the rind of Gretel's imaginary oranges -- feels real. I found myself moved by the way in which so many of the characters attempted to protect each other by keeping things from them, then suffered the disasterous results when it became clear that those efforts hardly mattered. I was particularly struk by Telek, whose love for a woman enables him to overcome his dark past and become the hero he could never have been before. The way we see how easily violence could come to him contrasted with his amazing gentleness to those he loves is simply gorgeous. The monstrousness of the Nazi and his "Brown Sister" are both believable and grotesque.

Through it all, the shadow of the original fairy tale alternately gives us foreshadowing and double meanings, right down to an ending that feels right without seeming too contrived. Highly recommended.