Snow White Learns Witchcraft

Theodora Goss
Completed 2/11/2022, Reviewed 2/11/2022
4 stars

This is a beautiful collection of poems and stories deconstructing familiar fairy tales and reweaving them into mostly modern stories.  At first I was a little put off by the poetry, but I got over that as I realized what the author was doing.  I was never a real appreciator of poetry except in the classroom where we analyzed them.  These poems however are almost like flash fiction.  They are very easy to get into, with vivid language and often a wry sense of humor.  The stories are longer and much the same, though some are not necessarily happy endings.  This book won the 2020 Mythopoeic Award, having some very tough competition from Jo Walton and Alix E. Harrow.  

Here are a few examples of the poems.  The title poem is about Snow White growing old. “The Ogress Queen” is a fun and disturbing poem about a Queen who wants to eat her children.  “Girl, Wolf, Woods” is a brief deconstruction of Red Riding Hood.  “Rumpelstiltskin” is told from his point of view after he splits himself in anger over being fooled, finding a real way of getting rich rather than enslaving a girl.  There are quite a few poems deconstructing Goldilocks, several involve a girl marrying a bear.  “How to Make it Snow” is about a girl who tends to nature and finds herself taking over as the new witch who makes it snow.  “Diamonds and Toads” retells the fairy tale about a girl who spews diamonds and one who spew toads, but rather than a terrible story, finds good in the toads keeping the garden pest-free and the diamonds letting a girl be a librarian.  These are just a few of the (23, I think) poems that play freely with fairy tells.  There were only a few I didn’t get.

The stories are much more complex.  “Blanchefleur” is the name of a white cat who is the faerie cousin of Ivan the idiot.  His faerie aunt comes for him to apprentice him in three different areas, knowledge, child care, and war.  Then he is asked to slay a dragon.  I loved this story.  Ivan is not an idiot but reclusive since his mother died when he was young.  He gets to prove himself in the world of faerie.

“Red as Blood and White as Bone” is about a servant girl who finds a woman in the kitchen one day.  She believes the woman is a princess.  She turns out to be an enchanted wolf seeking revenge on the killer of her mate.  This is a very complex tale of fantasy versus reality.  The girl then grows to try to keep fairy tales alive.

I really loved “A Country Called Winter”.  It’s a deconstruction of the Snow Queen.  Vera was born in a country with an unpronounceable name, only known as Winter.  She’s an American citizen now, along with her mother.  She’s working for a grad degree when she meets the beautiful Kay.  He’s an undergrad from Denmark.  The two date for a while but Kay is stolen by Gerda, another grad student.  Then Vera finds out about her own true background and must return to Winter.  It’s a wonderful modern day fairy tale with a happy ending.

“Conversations with the Sea Witch” deconstructs The Little Mermaid.  Now the Dowager Queen and in a wheelchair because her legs never worked, she meets daily with the Sea Witch and they talk about the past and the present, loves and regrets.  This was perhaps the best of the stories.  Where Goss took this story really surprised me.

I give this book four stars out of five, falling short of a five only because there were a few poems and a story I either didn’t get or felt didn’t live up to the brilliance of the rest.  Goss has a few novels under belt and I’d like to read one of them sometime.  Her word choices are beautiful and her imagination is surprising.  I’d be willing to bet her novels are pretty good.