Book Review: The Tale of Snow White and the Widow Queen by J. Pageau et al.

The Tale of Snow White and the Widow Queen written by Jonathan Pageau and illustrated by Heather Pollington

The story of Snow White has been immortalized by the Disney film from the 1930s. Based on a Grimms' fairy tale, everyone knows the tale of a young princess driven from the castle by a jealous and vain step-mother with a magic mirror (and other magics, as it turns out). This adaptation fills out some of the story, giving more background to Snow White's true parents, her birth, and her life under her step-mother. Many of the elements are familiar from other fairy tales (Snow White becomes a servant in the castle like Cinderella; the temptation with the poisoned apple is explicitly paralleled with the Garden of Eden temptation; etc.). The storytelling also uses the rule of threes several times to great effect, giving it a sense of classic fairy tale narrative. The story becomes fuller and richer in Pageau's telling.

The illustrations are even better. Pollington has worked in film art departments for Guillermo del Toro, among other filmmakers, and has an unerring sense of visual storytelling, especially in the folk-lore or mythic modes. The full-page images convey important story moments with many details thrown in. Visual motifs are reused to good effect, like the parallel between Snow White's mother's deathbed and Snow Whites' glass coffin.  The illustrations are delightful and fascinating.

Highly recommended--this is the start of a series of fairy tales retold by Pageau and I am sure to get future volumes.

Book Review: Snow, Glass, Apples by Neil Gaiman and Colleen Doran

Snow, Glass, Apples written by Neil Gaiman and art by Colleen Doran

In an imaginative reversal, the Snow White story is retold with the step-mother being the hero and the step-daughter the villain. But this isn't some revisionist sympathizing with the evil queen, it's a legitimate re-write of most of the story. The queen recognizes Snow White is a danger when the step-daughter comes to her bedroom, bites her hand, and drinks her blood. The pale white skin and ruby red lips and un-aging appearance of Snow White are there because she is a vampire. The queen doesn't act immediately which turns out to be a mistake. Snow's father is more willing to offer up his blood, resulting in his death. Once her husband dies, the queen sees she has to eliminate the vampire. Her men take Snow off into the forest where they cut out her heart, which remains beating. As the years go by, the forest is depopulated of all the dwarves and nymphs and other fantasy creatures. The queen makes a garlic-enhanced apple to solve the problem. A few years later, Prince Charming comes along, with disasterous results.

The story is an interesting alternate imagining of the Snow White story. I typically have no interest in stories that make the villain the good guy (like the musical Wicked or the Angelina Jolie Maleficent movies), so I was a little worried. This book is very imaginative and surprising. The art is fantastic though far too graphic (both sex and gore) to be a kid's book. In the afterward, the artist writes about how they changed the cover to be more off-putting for children, who are not at all the intended audience. That was a wise decision. This really is a horror story with an unhappy ending.

I admire more than enjoy this book. I'm not sure who I would recommend it to and probably won't read it again, though I did find some satisfaction in it.

Mildly recommended.