Fairytale Basics: Snow White

Not to be confusing, but there are two stories that use the name Snow White.  There is the familiar one with the dwarfs and evil queen, and then there is the one where another girl named Snow White and her sister Rose Red star. We’re going to talk about the first one, Snow White (and the seven dwarfs.)

I am reading Snow White with my 3rd grade classes right now. It’s really not what they expected.  We are reading a traditional version by the Brothers Grimm, I have two copies in my library, and we chose the one with illustrations by Trina Schart Hyman for class.

The kids thought they knew the story, but it was very different from the Disney version.  Most of them had never heard that her mother, while sewing by a window, pricked her finger with a needle and dropped three drops of blood into the snow on the ebony windowsill.  She asked for a child as white as snow, red as blood and dark as ebony.

They were also surprised that the evil stepmother targets Snow White at such a young age, 7 or 8 years old! They had never heard the part where the queen asked for the girl’s lungs and liver to be brought to her as proof she was dead.  And they were very grossed out by the queen then cooking and eating the organs.

The story has an interesting part, when Snow White finds the home of the seven dwarfs. She eats a bit from each of their plates and tries each of their beds. When the dwarfs return home, there is a very Goldilocks-moment when they ask who has been eating from their plates and sleeping in their beds.

The kids were quite surprised to learn the evil queen attempts to take Snow White’s life three times, once by lacing her corset too tightly, once by placing a poisoned comb in her hair and ultimately with the poisoned apple.

I think the weirdest parts of the story come at the end.  First after many years of lying in her glass coffin, a prince comes along and asks to take the coffin with him.  What exactly is he going to do with a dead girl? I don’t think she’s a little girl though, I think she grew up over the years in her coffin. Then he doesn’t wake her with a kiss, it is the jostling of the coffin as the soldiers carry it that dislodges the piece of apple that had choked her. She agrees to marry this random stranger-prince and when her evil stepmother arrives at the wedding, they heat iron slippers in a fire and make her wear them until she dies.

Wow.

I really don’t have a lot of fractured versions of this tale.  I do have:

I probably won’t read these to the kids in 3rd grade.  Instead, I’ll wait until we’ve read the traditional Rapunzel and read the Maynard Moose tale that mashes the two together.

There are quite a few retellings that I’d like to get, some are silly, some are not.  The multi-cultural ones really seem like something I need to buy.

There are quite a lot of young adult retellings and I’ve read a few adult ones.  Here are my favorites:

Red As Blood or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer by Tanith Lee is fabulous if you like dark fairytales.  The Snow White in this collection is a vampire.  Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother is a werewolf and Cinderella is a witch.  I LOVE THIS BOOK! Mirror Mirror by Gregory Maguire is a historical retelling of the classic tale featuring the Borgia family of medieval Italy.  I didn’t like it as much as Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister but it was still a good read.

My search for retellings led me to a treasure today!! I’m excited to see that Liesl Shurtliff is releasing another book in her fairytale retelling series.

I loved the first three in the series Rump, Jack  & Red. I cannot wait to read this one!!!!

And just for some fun, I found a video from one of my favorite cartoons of the late 80s, early 90s.  Garfield and Friends did a barnyard version they called Snow Wade and the 77 Dwarfs. You can watch the youtube video here.