Wonder Teller
Cover of Mother Holle: A Gentle Retelling
Folktales & LegendsPicture bookLevel 3Ages 3–5

Mother Holle: A Gentle Retelling

English · 20 pages · 578 words · 5 min read

A gentle retelling for listeners ages 3–5 of the Brothers Grimm tale “Mother Holle”: a hardworking girl follows her spindle down a well, helps the bread and the apple tree, shakes Mother Holle’s feather bed to make it snow, and comes home covered in gold, but her lazy stepsister comes home covered in pitch.

Read first 4 pages
Original work by
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
Translated by
Margaret Hunt
Adapted by
Wonder Teller

A look inside

The opening of Mother Holle: A Gentle Retelling, free to read.

  1. Illustration from page 2 of Mother Holle: A Gentle Retelling

    A woman had two daughters. Her own daughter was lazy, and her stepdaughter worked hard. The woman loved her lazy girl best, so the other girl did every chore.

  2. Illustration from page 3 of Mother Holle: A Gentle Retelling

    Every day, the hardworking girl sat by a well, spinning thread onto her wooden spindle. She spun until her sore fingers left a red mark on it.

  3. Illustration from page 4 of Mother Holle: A Gentle Retelling

    She leaned over to wash the spindle. Plop! It slipped from her hand into the well. Crying, she ran to her stepmother.

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