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Journal Entry 1 by cats-eye from Bishop Auckland, County Durham United Kingdom on Thursday, January 24, 2008
 "The story has been told over and over by liars and it must be retold."
In the winter of 1943, on the outskirts of a dark forest, two Jewish children flee the Nazis with their father and stepmother. In a moment of desperation, the children are given the aliases Hansel and Gretel and sent alone into the woods to hide. Gretel leads her younger brother in search of food and protection, while Hansel leaves a trail of breadcrumbs behind so that their father might find them again.
So begins The True Story of Hansel and Gretel, which takes us along on their journey into a forest more ancient than man. In a landscape populated by exotic beasts, refugees, and revolutionaries, the two children embark upon a new life as Christian orphans, protected by a woman who is called Magda the witch and whose tiny hut is heated by an enormous baker's oven.
Combining classic themes of fairy tales and war literature, this haunting novel of journey and survival, of redemption and memory, powerfully depicts how war is experienced by families and especially by children, and tells a resonant, riveting story.
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I read this book at the end of the summer, and have been wondering what to do with it since - normally I just BC a book without much thought of where it goes after me...when it's released, it's journey may take it any which way. This book, however, was one of my favourite reads of 2007, and therefore takes a certain pride of place on my bookshelves here.
I loved the parallels of this story (set during WW2 in a frozen, German-occupied Poland) with the classic Grimms tale we all know. The imagery that Murphy creates and the emotion that she conveys is stellar, in my opinion....she manages to capture the feeling and atmosphere of the time and situation with beautifully evocative language. Although the book is fiction, the lengths that Magda goes to, the sacrifices and risks, are surely a representation of the kinds of things that average people in war savaged places do every day for others just like Hansel & Gretel - or at least I'd like to believe in that side of humanity...and it is for that reason, that message expressed within the pages of this book, that I have offered it as my favourite read of the year in the BookObsessed "Best of 2007" swap :-)
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Journal Entry 2 by cats-eye from Bishop Auckland, County Durham United Kingdom on Thursday, February 28, 2008
On the way to zzz...safe travels, little book! Enjoy, Milan :-)
ETA: posted 03/03/2008
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The True Story of Hansel and Gretel
