If you enjoy Lorenzo Mattotti’s illustrations for Hansel and Gretel, you may also enjoy illustrations by Savva Brodsky. Savva Brodsky Illustrations for short stories by Alexander Grin, 1960s Following the traditional with detailed illustration and dark moments; to test pupils inference and comprehension skills. She is not a good housewife (when the implication is that a good housewife is also a good mother, and that being a good housekeeper is the job of the woman. By that I mean, they made it horribly patriarchal. And we’ve been using their version ever since, sweetening it up a little, but the basic patriarchal message is the same:

This story has been ‘retold’ by Jane Ray. What does this mean? Can you find other stories that have been retold? The Brothers Grimm wrote the original fairy tale. Can you find out what other stories they wrote? If you could interview them today, what questions would you like to ask them? Jane Doonan, "The object lesson: picture books of Anthony Browne", Word & Image 2:2 (1986 April–June), pp.159–72.Anthony Browne's Hansel and Gretel, adapted from the translation by Eleanor Quarrie, has a distinctly contemporary feel. This is enhanced by the humorous illustrations: the woodcutter, for example, has a television set in his home, and the cruel stepmother, trips daintily along in high heels and a striking yellow coat, a cigarette hanging from her mouth. These help to bring a lighter note to this otherwise traditionally dark tale. What do you associate red shoes with? Perhaps you associate them with the film version of The Wizard of Oz, in which the bad witch is squished under the house, her ruby slippers poking out? Anthony Browne: Children's Laureate 2009–11". Children's Laureate (childrenslaureate.org.uk). Booktrust. Retrieved 28 September 2013. Watch different retellings of the story. How are they similar / different? Which do you prefer? Here is one example:

Is there a classic tale from your childhood which feel to you like some parts are missing? Perhaps one character doesn’t get a fair deal. I often feel that way about female characters in fairytales when retold by Perrault and Grimm; in the Victorian era, women were ideally stupid and innocent. Around this time step-mothers started to become most vilified. Beautiful people are portrayed to be good; ugly people are bad. Use the speech within the text to create a play script. Could you perform this with some friends or use puppets? Not only that, Neil Gaiman portrays gut-wrenching emotion in the father. Counterintuitively, this is what makes this story feminist — a story in which women are not put on a pedestal as mothers, where women have only one representation: self-sacrificing and emotional. In stories, men are often allowed to be just men, even when they have children. They are not judged so much on how effective they are as fathers. In this story, however, the father is the parent with the nurturing instinct, and is at the mercy of his wife’s terrible decisions rather than the other way around. We won’t have gender equality until we have as many bad mothers as there are bad fathers, I guess. Food In Fairytales Eccleshare, Julia (28 July 2000). "Portrait of the artist as a gorilla. Interview: Anthony Browne". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 7 January 2008 . Retrieved 26 December 2007.

Anthony Browne". Walker Books. Archived from the original on 14 December 2007 . Retrieved 26 December 2007. Tony Bradman, "Through the magic mirror: the work of Anthony Browne", British Book News, 1984 Autumn [Children's Books], pp.2–5. Flood, Alison (9 June 2009). "Gorilla artist Anthony Browne becomes children's laureate". The Guardian.

The billowing tree and off-kilter palings of the foreground fence remind me of similar techniques used by Mattotti in Hansel and Gretel. This way of drawing makes for a creepy vibe. When he finished school Browne intended to become a painter, but being short of money he took a job as a medical illustrator, producing detailed paintings of operations for Manchester Royal Infirmary. After three years he grew tired of the job's repetitiveness and moved on to design greeting cards for Gordon Fraser. He designed cards for five years before he started writing and illustrating his own books. On 9 June 2009 he was appointed the sixth Children's Laureate (2009–2011), selected by a panel that former Poet Laureate Andrew Motion chaired. [5] I did enjoy this story and found it evoked some very strong emotions. It is certainly worth reading to Key stage one or two children and would be a very good stimulus for a PSHE lessons on keeping safe, responsibilities and wellbeing. It would also provide plenty of opportunities for a philosophy for children lesson.

But if Millions of Cats is comfortingly secure, it is not just because it emphasizes shape over line, pattern over energy; it is also because the shapes happen to be primarily rounded and curved ones—the sort of shapes we associate with softness and yielding. Such associations have an obvious effect on our attitudes to pictures.