Bound To Stay Bound

Other - 08/18/2025 This splendidly chilling variation of the Brothers Grimm story is built around costume and set designs that late Caldecott Medalist Sendak produced for a Humperdinck opera. Rather than reframing or reimagining the classic tale, novelist King-who, per an introductory note, was drawn to images including the candy house shifting into a human face with a long, pink tongue-digs into the story for new possibilities. Though drought and famine threaten the pale-skinned family that lives at the edge of a dark wood, Hansel and Gretel’s wicked stepmother perpetrates distinctive evils as she lies about the family’s exhausted stores while hiding away "half a ham and a joint of beef" and persuading the children’s father to leave them to the wolves ("Better a quick death in the jaws of an animal than slow starvation in the jaws of circumstance"). Dark, receding forest scenery frames the text, luring readers deeper into menace; cramped black lines imagine knobbly forest roots and branches that suggest sinew and bone. When the children stumble upon the candy house and the witch invites them in, King’s grotesquerie conveys the home’s transformation: "Once they were asleep, the pleasant aromas became the smells of rotting fruits and vegetables, the walls started dripping with slime...." While the narrative’s characterizations and diction hew to tradition ("Nibble, nibble, little mouse, who is nibbling at my house?"), its horrors land with fresh force in an epic retelling that suits the illustrations’ eerie magnificence. Ages 6-up. Author’s agent: Liz Darhansoff, Darhansoff & Verrill. (Sept.) - Copyright 2025