40 Fun Facts About The Grimm Conclusion

In The Grimm Conclusion, what dish does the murderer make from young Joringel's body after beheading him?

A stew is what becomes of Joringel, and his unsuspecting mother is served it. The scene reworks an old Grimm story in which a murdered boy is cooked and served to his own parent.

Jorinda is nicknamed Ashputtle in The Grimm Conclusion, the Grimms' name for which famous fairy-tale heroine?

Cinderella is the heroine the Grimms called Aschenputtel, or Ashputtle. Their version has no fairy godmother, and it is far bloodier than the one most children know.

Which fairy-tale siblings lead A Tale Dark & Grimm, the first book of the trilogy The Grimm Conclusion ends?

Hansel and Gretel head A Tale Dark & Grimm, and they are not forgotten in the finale. Characters from the earlier books make cameo appearances in The Grimm Conclusion.

In The Grimm Conclusion, Joringel performs CPR on which cursed princess from a famous fairy tale?

Sleeping Beauty gets CPR from Joringel, a very modern twist on the old story. Adam Gidwitz also swaps her spindle-pricked finger for a different curse.

In The Grimm Conclusion, the twins step out of their story to visit the narrator in which New York borough?

Brooklyn is where Jorinda and Joringel meet the narrator in person, far from their fairy-tale kingdom. Adam Gidwitz lives there, and the visit lets him explain why he tells such grisly stories.

In The Grimm Conclusion's Ashputtle episode, what do the stepsisters cut off in hopes of marrying the prince?

Parts of their feet come off so the shoe will fit, a detail taken straight from the Grimms. Adam Gidwitz keeps the gore that gentler retellings leave out.

What were the first names of the Brothers Grimm, whose collected tales Adam Gidwitz reworks in The Grimm Conclusion?

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were academics and linguists as well as collectors of folk tales. They gathered the stories as part of their study of German culture and language.

Which streaming service turned A Tale Dark & Grimm, first of Adam Gidwitz's Grimm books, into an animated series?

Netflix released the animated series worldwide, and it earned a nomination at the first Children's and Family Emmy Awards. A second season was never made.

Reborn as a bird in The Grimm Conclusion, Joringel takes revenge on his killer by dropping which heavy object?

A millstone lands on the murderer, and Joringel then comes back to life. In the Grimm story the scene comes from, the bird earns the stone by singing for a miller.

In The Grimm Conclusion, Jorinda's cruel nickname Ashputtle is freely translated as which unflattering job title?

Toilet Cleaner is the joke translation, because Jorinda's chores include scrubbing the household chamber pots. Her stepsisters use the name while she does the dirtiest work in the house.

Who beheads young Joringel near the start of The Grimm Conclusion and then tricks his sister into taking the blame?

His stepfather does it, turning the Grimms' original on its head: in their version the killer is a stepmother. Jorinda is fooled into believing she knocked her brother's head off herself.

After swallowing a magic berry in The Grimm Conclusion, Joringel can no longer feel which emotion?

Fear disappears for Joringel once he swallows the berry. The idea echoes an old Grimm story about a boy who leaves home hoping to learn how to shudder.

Which lesser-known Grimm tale, about a murdered boy who returns as a bird, does The Grimm Conclusion retell?

The Juniper Tree supplies the gruesome opening, with the boy's bones buried beneath the tree of the title. Adam Gidwitz mixes it with far more familiar stories.

What is the name of the terrifying ogre with a haunted mansion in The Grimm Conclusion?

Malchizedek is the ogre, one of the new characters created for the final book. Lasting three nights in his haunted home is one of the story's trials.

Whose help does Joringel receive when he brings his murdered sister back from hell in The Grimm Conclusion?

The devil's grandmother lends a hand, a character borrowed from the Grimms. In one of their tales she hides a boy in her clothes and plucks golden hairs from her dozing grandson.

What name is given to the anarchic Kingdom of Children where the twins end up in The Grimm Conclusion?

Jungreich is the Kingdom of Children, which works rather like an anarchic day camp. The twins find their happy ending there after making peace with their mother.

Which trio of talking creatures offers arch commentary on events throughout The Grimm Conclusion?

Three ravens comment on the action with dry wit. A trio of the same talking birds narrates the animated series made from the trilogy's first book.

Before she is murdered in The Grimm Conclusion, what kind of ruler does young Jorinda become?

A tyrant queen is what Jorinda becomes while still a child. The story later builds to a battle involving a whole army of children.

Which nursery-rhyme pair lead the middle book of the trilogy that The Grimm Conclusion completes?

Jack and Jill lead In a Glass Grimmly, the book Adam Gidwitz wrote about peers and image. Each volume of the trilogy sends a new boy and girl out into a harsh world.

How are the narrator's frequent interruptions set apart on the page throughout The Grimm Conclusion?

Bold type marks every moment the narrator butts in with a warning, a joke or a word of comfort. The device runs through all three books of the trilogy.

Which literary term fits The Grimm Conclusion's habit of letting characters hear and even visit their own narrator?

Metafiction is fiction that openly admits it is a made-up story. Adam Gidwitz called the finale very metafictional, since one of its themes is its own reason for being.

Which author of The Little Mermaid do Adam Gidwitz's closing notes for The Grimm Conclusion credit beyond the Grimms?

Andersen, the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen, is named in the closing note on where the stories came from. Adam Gidwitz credits his own imagination there too.

Adam Gidwitz said each Grimm book tackles its own issue; which did he name for The Grimm Conclusion?

The power of storytelling is the finale's subject, and the twins slowly become tellers of their own story. The first two books dealt with parents and with peers.

How does author Adam Gidwitz say the J that begins the names Jorinda and Joringel should be pronounced?

Like a Y is the rule, so the names come out as YOUR-inda and YOUR-ingle. Adam Gidwitz jokes that German is weird.

In the Grimm tale that gave The Grimm Conclusion's twins their names, a witch turns the heroine into which bird?

A nightingale is the heroine's fate, one of many maidens the witch keeps caged as birds. A magic flower finally breaks the spell.

Which Grimm tale about children beheaded by their parents did Adam Gidwitz read aloud to second graders?

Faithful Johannes was the story, and the pupils urged him to make it into a book. Adam Gidwitz added jokes and warnings as he read, which became the trilogy's trademark.

Adam Gidwitz credits a stint in which job with inspiring the trilogy that The Grimm Conclusion completes?

Substitute librarian was the role, at a school where he had taught. Told to read the children whatever he liked, he grabbed his Grimm fairy tales off the shelf.

Which later novel by The Grimm Conclusion author Adam Gidwitz, set in medieval France, was named a Newbery Honor book?

The Inquisitor's Tale follows three magical children and a holy dog across medieval France. Its frame of travellers swapping stories at an inn was inspired by The Canterbury Tales.

Which series about mythical creatures did Adam Gidwitz create after finishing his trilogy with The Grimm Conclusion?

The Unicorn Rescue Society is the series, and Gidwitz wrote most of its adventures with a guest co-author. Partners have included Joseph Bruchac, David Bowles and Emma Otheguy.

After finishing The Grimm Conclusion, Adam Gidwitz wrote a young readers' retelling of a film from which franchise?

Star Wars was next, with Gidwitz retelling The Empire Strikes Back under the subtitle So You Want to Be a Jedi.

The Grimm Conclusion finally shows its chatty narrator in person; where do the twins find him at work?

In a classroom is where the narrator turns up, revealed as a teacher. There he helps the twins see that their feelings need to be expressed and their stories told.

In the first chapter of The Grimm Conclusion, which relative dies of joy on first seeing the newborn twins?

Their father is so happy at the sight of his children that he drops dead. Adam Gidwitz summed it up by saying the twins inadvertently kill him in the first chapter.

In The Grimm Conclusion's big battle scene, an army of children fights against which opponents?

Soldiers face the army of children in one of the high points of the fairy-tale quest. By then the story has passed through a scary forest and an ogre's lair.

Adam Gidwitz retells creepy fairy tales for children in Grimm, Grimmer, Grimmest, which is what kind of production?

A podcast is the format, and Gidwitz tells the tales live to kids. It returns to the scary fairy stories that started his career as a writer.

Jorinda and Joringel are twins in The Grimm Conclusion, but what are they to each other in the original Grimm tale?

Engaged lovers is what the Grimms made them, a couple out walking in the forest when a witch strikes. Adam Gidwitz said his twins are based only very loosely on the originals.

What was the setting of the novel Adam Gidwitz was struggling to write when he started his Grimm trilogy instead?

Ancient Egypt was the backdrop of a sprawling historical novel about war and growing up. He put it aside after children urged him to make a Grimm story into a book.

Which Coraline director was once attached to a live-action film of A Tale Dark & Grimm, first of Adam Gidwitz's trilogy?

Henry Selick signed on in the very month The Grimm Conclusion was published, and was still developing the film three years later. An animated series eventually went ahead without him.

Despite its many deaths, Adam Gidwitz described The Grimm Conclusion as perhaps which kind of book among his own?

The funniest book he had ever written was Gidwitz's own verdict. He added that he happens to find death pretty funny.

Which American publisher of the Winnie-the-Pooh books released The Grimm Conclusion and the rest of the trilogy?

Dutton published all three of Adam Gidwitz's Grimm books, and it brought A. A. Milne's bear to American readers in the 1920s.

Which American author of Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins is credited among The Grimm Conclusion's non-Grimm sources?

Eric Kimmel, the author of more than 150 children's books, is one of the modern writers whose work fed into the finale. The debt is acknowledged in a note at the back.