Outside Over There: The story of the Grandmother

It was interesting reciting the edgy DeLaRue/Zipes’ reconstruction of the Story of the Grandmother to PGCE students in the woods today, those lovely dappled woods where the magpies chatter and one group saw a deer and we all felt at ease with children in the outdoors. In some ways it felt rather like the side-by-side comparison of Red Riding Hood stories on Katherine Harris’ site or rather the student project on the site

And it set me in mind of the power and transferability of Sendak’s Outside Over There, represented in Labyrinth , where themes such as burgeoning sexuality, sibling rivalry – not to mention the more complex issues of siblings and new babies in reconstituted families – are dealt with so openly. Is OOT more menacing because of the subtler treatment of the themes?  Or is it merely ambiguous to the point of being open to any interpretation?