A Feminist Hansel and GretelTitle
by Riley Neugebauer

There was once an unmarried couple with two kids who were named Hansel and Gretel. The wife was unable to make enough money at her job in order to support the family while her husband stayed at home to take care of the children, so she and her husband came up with the idea that they would have to give up the children to adoption, and for now, put them in foster care.

So, the kids are led away into the city to live with another family for awhile, but none of the adults noticed that Gretel had a handful of white stones that she dropped out the window of the car of the new family the whole way to her new house so that they could find their way back home at night when the stones would shine in the moonlight. Hansel and Gretel waited until nighttime when their new parents were sleeping, and then followed the stones back to their old house. Their real parents were happy to see them of course, but still could not afford to keep them, so their new parents again drove them off the next day. This time, Gretel had taken the sandwich that her parents made her and crumbled the bread and dropped it out the window, since she did not have any more stones. The problem was that at night this time, they could not find their way back because birds throughout the day had eaten the bread. They wandered around hoping to find their way back, but could not do it, so they ended up back at their new parents house because they were so hungry, and just pictured all the food that would be found inside. They ate a lot once they got inside, but were still very unhappy with their situation.

All this time they had thought of their new mother as a witch, because she was older than their real mother and had to be evil since she had taken them away from their parents. But she was trying to help them, and eventually got out of them why it was that they were so mad, which is because their mother could not afford to support the family on her salary because she was not paid as much as the men that she worked with. It just so happened that the woman had a lot of connections in the city, and so she made a lot of phonecalls and a big group of her and her friends went down to the company where their real mother worked, and they persuaded the male president of the company to raise the salaries of the women who worked in the company. The kids were able to return to their real parents and had learned about the importance of working together and that the woman was wrongly accused of being a witch. They also knew that sometimes things are not fair, but that they can be changed so that everyone can start to live happily ever after.