I listened to the audiobook while my then-6 year old kept interrupting with lots of questions about Miss Kaminski, who was clearly the evil queen. This 'Snow Queen' adaptation is quite different from Breadcrumbs.

OPHELIA AND THE MARVELOUS BOY by Karen Foxlee Hazel sets out on a journey to find her friend and return home. Hazel and Jack are friends, but one day when Jack gets a piece of glass in his eye he is whisked away by a strange, evil woman to a land of snow. Ages 8 and up.īreadcrumbs is inspired by Hans Christian Andersson's The Snow Queen.' Families will love to spot the literary references and will also be reminded of The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. There was a surprising amount of both humor and depth in this tale ( you'd need it to balance out the RATS - did I mention their are RATS?) and if you have a son who has succumbed to the 'fairy tales are for girls' disease, this will be a good book to start his healing process. Then the RATS show up, followed by a strange man who promises to get rid of them for a price - Rudi's gold coin. He tries to return it so that the witch will not bring down a curse on the village, but he loses it in the snow. Rudi finds a coin on the mountain but it turns out to belong to the witch. I suppose that is because as a kid I found the story of children being taken away by a piper quite disturbing! I had a Kate Greenway illustrated copy of the tale and even her pastoral drawings couldn't reconcile me to the tale! Anyhoo. Before I picked up this book I would not have thought 'The Pied Piper of Hamlin' would be good material for a fairy tale retelling.

Sun moon jack rapunzel