Kila: Hansel and Gretel

Kila: Hansel and Gretel - a story book from Kila

Kila offers fun story books to stimulate the love of reading. Kila’s story books help kids to enjoy reading and learning with a plentiful amount of fables and fairy tales.

Near a great forest there lived a poor woodcutter and his wife and his two children. The boy's name was Hansel and the girl's Gretel. They had very little to eat.

When there was great dearth in the land, the wife asked her husband to leave their children in the forest. This was a hard decision for the man.

The two children had not been able to sleep for hunger and had heard what their stepmother had said to their father. But Hansel already had an idea to save both.

When the day was breaking, the stepmother gave each of them a piece of bread and they all went into the forest together.

While walking into the deep forest, Hansel took, every now and then, a little piece from his bread and dropped it on the road.

When they reached the middle of the forest, the stepmother left the children without their notice. Hansel and Gretel waited until the moon rose to get back home.

However, they could find no crumbs of bread, for the birds of the woods had picked them up. They could not find the way out of the wood and they were very hungry.

On about noon of the third day, they came to a little house which was built of gingerbread and roofed with cakes; and the window was of transparent sugar.

"We will have some of this," said Hansel, "and make a fine meal. I will eat a piece of the roof, Gretel, and you can have some of the window that will taste sweet."

Then the door opened, and an aged woman came out. The children felt very frightened. The woman, however, nodded her head and said, "Ah, my dear children, come indoors and stay with me. You will be no trouble."

The old woman, even though her behavior was so kind, was a wicked witch who had built the little house on purpose to entice children. Once they were inside, she used to eat them.

Early in the morning, she led Hansel into a little stable. Then she forced Gretel to cook something nice for her brother. She wanted Hansel to be fattened so she could eat him.

When four weeks had passed and Hansel seemed to remain so thin, she lost patience. She cried to the little girl, "Check the oven, I must cook him."

Gretel saw her intentions, and said, "How shall I get in?" The old woman said, "The opening is big enough!" and she stooped down and put her head in the oven's mouth.

Then Gretel gave her a push and locked the wicked woman in the oven. Gretel went straight to Hansel, opened the stable-door, and cried, "Hansel, we are free!”

And as they had nothing more to fear, they took all the pearls and precious stones and got out of the forest.

When they got home, the stepmother was gone but the father was still waiting for his children to return. They took out pearls and precious stones and used them to live in great joy together.

We hope you enjoy this book. If there are any problems please contact us at [email protected]
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