Hansel & Gretel

In Hansel & Gretel, the Brothers Grimm's classic dark fairy tale, two siblings are left alone in the forest and must find their own way home.

Times are hard, and there is not enough food in the house. When their parents decide the children are one mouth too many, Hansel and Gretel are led deep into the woods and left behind. Hansel is clever — the first time, he marks the path with white pebbles, and the two find their way back. But the next time, all he has is bread, and the crumbs he drops are eaten by birds before dawn.

Lost and hungry, the children wander until they find a strange little house built from bread, cake, and sugar. It seems like the answer to their prayers, until the old woman living inside turns out to be a witch who eats children. She locks Hansel in a cage to fatten him up and puts Gretel to work. To save her brother, Gretel has to outsmart the witch before it's too late.

This is a dark, spare piece of German folklore, with a gingerbread house, a wicked witch, and two children who survive on nothing but wit and courage. It sits alongside the other great Grimm tales of hunger, cruelty, and clever kids who win in the end — a good fit for anyone who loves old-world fairy tales or is revisiting a childhood story as an adult.

Elizabeth Grace reads it slow and gentle, with quiet space around the darker turns. This isn't the soft modern kind of bedtime story — the forest and the danger are real — but the hush of it is easy to sink into and lose well before the oven door swings shut.