Once upon a time, two sisters named Fanny and Gretel lived in a hut with their mother and step-father.  

Their mother was a poor village baker and their step-father was a cruel, selfish and lazy person who did nothing. 

Their real father had died when the two children were very young. 

Fanny and Gretel’s mother struggled to manage the children, house, garden and bakery to earn money for the family. Many a night Fanny and Gretel would go to bed without food but their stepfather did not care about this and ate more than his share. 

One night, when the mother had gone to their aunt’s place, the two children were not given any food and neither they were allowed to sleep in the hut. Outside in the cold, they shivered and tried to keep each other warm.  It was winter, and the clothes they wore were so thin it felt almost as if they had no clothes on at all.

The next morning when the sun rose, Gretel turned to her sister Fanny.

  “Fanny, we cannot stay here. We must escape now, today, into the woods!  Surely we will find more to eat when we are on our own than what we get here at home.”  she said.

 "But what if we get lost?” said Fanny

“We won’t! I will take biscuits.  We will drop biscuit crumbs behind us.  If we have to, we can follow the crumbs back home.” said Gretel. 

And so, the two of them went off into the woods and left their hard life behind. They went deeper and deeper into the woods.  Gretel was careful to drop one crumb and then after a bit, another.

They looked and looked for any sign of something to eat - an apple tree, pear tree, some nuts on the ground, or even dried-up berries.  There was nothing to eat!  They got hungrier and hungrier. At last, poor Fanny and Gretel knew they must return to their hut or they would surely starve. They would just need to find the biscuit crumbs and that would lead them home.

But wait! Destiny had some other plans for the 

children - all the biscuit crumbs were gone! 

Gretel was struck with grief – the birds must have taken all their biscuit crumbs.  

 The sun was setting.  Fanny and Gretel were lost and hungry.  

Now they were scared, too. Each minute it was getting darker and darker. 

All of a sudden, Gretel saw a small light shining far away.  Could it be someone's hut this deep in the woods? 

 “We must find out!” cried Gretel.  

“Maybe whoever lives there is kind and will take us in.”

The two children sped as fast as they could to the light.

When they got closer, they could not believe their eyes!  What they saw was a hut made all of candy – From Top to bottom!  From its gingerbread roof, with frosting all over the walls, and with candies tucked into the frosting, what a sight to see!