The old woman in the house is ‘as old as the hills’. Can you think of other similes to describe her / the other characters in the story? Imagine that you were taken into a forest. What is it like? How would you describe it?? (see Resources below) Anthony Browne". Author & Illustrator Archive. The Wee Web (theweeweb.co.uk). Archived from the original on 22 October 2008 . Retrieved 26 December 2007.

Imagine that you were standing in front of the house made of sweets. What can you see / smell / touch / hear / taste? Think of lots of different words to describe your different senses. This story has been ‘retold’ by Jane Ray. What does this mean? Can you find other stories that have been retold?Anthony Browne has often illustrated Hansel and Gretel to be looking away from the reader, this allows the reader to experience what the characters are feeling and put their emotions in the place of the characters. The Children of Famine — exemplifies the plight of families unable to feed their kids. The mother becomes unhinged and desperate when she is unable to feed her own children. Perry Nodelman in Words About Pictures finds the curved forms comforting as much as creepy, and speaks of the comfort of a predictable, oft-told tale: Hansel and Gretel and Child Development When children defeat a witch in a fairy tale this signifies separation from mother — a necessary stage in psychic development.

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. Daniels further explains the double/duplicitous/split nature of the (step)mother/witch with the help of some 20th C psychoanalysis: A review of Hansel and Gretel using the picture codes to enhance the story and meaning of the illustrations. It is interesting to consider the ending of the tale in terms of psychoanalytic notions of child development. The children’s task is to escape the clutches of the devouring mother and to proceed from the oral phase to the oedipal stage and a meaningful relationship with their father. They live in her house for a month while she feeds Hansel on “the very best food” and waits for him to get fatter. Hansel, then, partakes of the good breast while Gretel, who “got nothing but grab shells” to eat, is denied it. They are clearly in the oral, pre-oedipal phase. By threatening to eat Hansel, the witch/bad mother clearly intends to incorporate and psychically obliterate him. Gretel kills the witch/bad mother by pushing her into the oven so that she is “miserably burned to death”. The threat of incorporation she poses is thus neutralized. Look at the different shapes in the illustrations. How many squares / rectangles / circles (etc) can you find?Tony Bradman, "Through the magic mirror: the work of Anthony Browne", British Book News, 1984 Autumn [Children's Books], pp.2–5. We have also been thinking about voicing our ideas through a debate. We have split into Team Hansel and Team Gretel to debate and decide which character can be regarded as the ultimate hero of the story. We evaluate arguments for and against each character using evidence from the text. Children then presented their debate and made their own decision.

Browne won two Kate Greenaway Medals from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book illustration. For the 50th anniversary of the Medal (1955–2005), a panel named his 1983 medalist Gorilla one of the top ten winning works, which composed the ballot for a public election of the nation's favourite. [7] Life and work [ edit ] The Hans Christian Andersen Awards, 1956–2002. IBBY. Gyldendal. 2002. Hosted by Austrian Literature Online ( literature.at). Retrieved 2013-07-23. 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. Browne and writer Annalena McAfee won the 1985 Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis, Picture Book category, for Mein Papi, nur meiner! (The Visitors Who Came to Stay). He also won the Kurt Maschler Award "Emil" three times, which annually (1982 to 1999) recognised one British "work of imagination for children, in which text and illustration are integrated so that each enhances and balances the other." [15] Browne was a winner for Gorilla (Julia MacRae Books, 1983), Alice's Adventure in Wonderland (MacRae, 1988) and Voices in the Park (Doubleday, 1998), as the illustrator of all three books and the writer of two. [15]

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. 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 I would also compare the art of Manttotti to that of Armin Greeder, who has illustrated The Great Bear and The Island in a style which you’re more likely to find in an unsettling art exhibition than a book for children: