But the demons eventually trick her with a ring she hopes to give her beloved daughter, now of an age to marry. The hunchback known as ``Ugly One'' is a midwife who becomes a healer when she learns to draw, with a blessed object, a magic circle that cannot be invaded by the devil's minions from safely within it, she can command them to leave their victims. The author of The Prince in the Pond (1992) leaps from that comic take on ``The Frog Prince'' to a dark, deeply thoughtful novel whose gifted, driven, and wholly sympathetic protagonist is Hansel and Gretel's witch. 'synopsis' may belong to another edition of this title. “A work of great strength and powerful emotion, written with immediacy and intensity, filled with beauty and terror and pervading sense of compassion that must touch young and old.”-Lloyd AlexanderĪ Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year

“A brilliantly conceived and beautifully executed novel.”- School Library Journal, starred review But demons’ voices scream in her head: “Eat them!” How can she?. They are such good children, such delicious, beautiful children. The Ugly One longs to take care of sturdy, sensible Gretel and her young brother Hansel. Then one day she hears the footsteps she dreads. All she wants is to forget-the she was once a loving mother and a healer, blessed and powerful within her magic circle, and not a witch, claimed by the devils. From the author of Zel, Stones in Water, and The Prince of the Pond.ĭeep in the woods lives the old witch called Ugly One.

The magic circle by donna jo napoli