![]() The True Story of Hansel and Gretel’s setting is the Bialowieza Forest, Europe’s only remaining primeval forest and a World Heritage Site filled with animals that exist nowhere else in Europe: tarpan ponies, grey wolves, bison, rare owls, boar, and lynx. There’s nothing more thrilling than when a novel introduces me to an extraordinarily wonderful thing I hadn’t before known existed. The mares lifted their heads too, and in one movement it seemed, they all three broke and ran toward the east in bounds that cleared the deeper drifts of snow. …The stallion lifted his head and gave a sudden blow of steam through his nostrils. They were thickly built and moved surely in the snow. ![]() They were smaller than domesticated ponies, and their heads were heavy, almost like the heads of donkeys. Telek took her hand, and they stood in the snow and did not even blink while the ponies came toward them. ![]() Gretel caught her breath but didn’t move or speak. ![]() Through the trees they came, pawing at the snow to uncover the moss and leaves, eating any low-growing twigs and chewing the bark. Rating: The True Story of Hansel and Gretel, by Louise Murphy. (This review first appeared in March 2004) ![]()
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