Hansel & Gretel
retold by Neil Gaiman; ill. Lorenzo Mattotti (Bloomsbury, 2014)
Neil Gaiman retells Hansel & Gretel with gentle fairy-tale prose and an eye for the framing details (war-begotten famine). The impression conveyed by Lorenzo Mattotti’s shadowy illustrations is one of dark despair; apposite, yet hardly cause for more than a lingering glance.