Snow White Learns Witchcraft: Stories and Poems

by Theodora Goss

Jane Yolen (Introduction)

• ISBN10: 1732644004
• ISBN13: 9781732644007
• Publish Date: 5 February 2019
• Publish Status: Active
• Imprint: Mythic Delirium Books
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 224
• Language: English

Reviews

[Quirky Cat]

Snow White Learns Witchcraft is a compilation of short stories and poems written by Theodora Goss. There's an introduction written by Jane Yolen, which is admittedly the whole reason this collection ended up on my radar in the first place (thank you for that).

This anthology is full of fractured fairy tales – my favorite sort of fairy tale. Included, you'll find new takes on stories originally written by Charles Perrault, the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, and Oscar Wilde. Yeah, it's quite the variety! And it's worth checking out.

“They are some of the most powerful narratives human beings have produced, about what we most want (beauty, home, bread) and fear (darkness, abandonment, being devoured), which is why they keep being retold and reconfigured.”

Snow White Learns Witchcraft has got to be one of the more vibrant anthologies I've read in recent times. But then again, I really do love twisted and unique takes on classic tales, so I rather expected to enjoy this book.

There's something so ethereal about Theodora Goss' writing, it works beautifully with the stories she hand-picked to handle here, and I couldn't get enough of it all. To put it into perspective – I got so wrapped up in reading these stories and poems that I forgot to take notes. Hence why I'm not reviewing each one separately. Hopefully, my reason why will be compelling enough.

Thanks to Mythic Delirium Books and #NetGalley for making this book available for review. All opinions expressed are my own.

Read more reviews at Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks

[HekArtemis]

I really enjoyed these retellings. There are a few longer (in audio between 20 and 40 minutes each) stories, and heaps of smaller poems/snippets that range from 1 minute to 5 minutes each. The stories and poems range from cute and lovely to sad but sweet to dark and sometimes creepy, so it's a pretty good range. Not all of them have happy endings, not all of them are based around romances. All of them, imo, were fantastic.

I can't really say which were my favourites because there were so many small ones (also it is not easy to flip through an audio book to find the titles of them). But I really loved one of the early short ones which focuses on the wife of the prince who woke Sleeping Beauty, it was quite creepy. And the last longish one about the Nightingale was so sad and beautiful. The Red Riding Hood one was interesting to say the least, and the one about the Idiot and the cat was lovely.

Nah I just loved all of them.

(Some of these are not really suitable for telling to children, in case you were wondering - but some of them absolutely are. If you're considering this book for your kids, I would suggest a text based one and pick and choose which ones to share).