★ 09/08/2014 In a potent collection of verse, Heppermann melds fairy-tale imagery with lacerating commentary about the demands that society makes on women and girls. The results are excoriating and nearly impossible to forget. “Once upon a time there was a girl who/ had a good hair week!” opens a magazine-style twist on Red Riding Hood. “Seven cute looks/ she could do at home, and their names were/ Waves, Bun, Bangs, Braid, Sleek, and/ Party-Ready Ponytail.” Other poems examine eating disorders, consent, and body image, but while Heppermann illuminates many bitter truths, she also celebrates women’s ability to surmount the societal, systemic forces seeking to box them in. “If I was a good girl,/ if I could satisfy their cravings... I might have stayed at the table,” reads “Gingerbread.” “Wouldn’t you run, too,/ from such voracious love?” Ages 13–up. Agent: Tina Wexler, ICM. (Sept.)
Caustic, witty, sad, and angry, Heppermann articulates . . . the false promises, seductions, and deathly morass of popular culture’s imagery of girls’ bodies. What makes Heppermann’s poetry exceptional, however, is not the messages it carries but the intense, expressive drive that fuels it.” — Horn Book (starred review)
“Lacing traditional fairy tales through real-life perils, Heppermann produces short poems with raw pain, scathing commentary and fierce liberation. . . . Full of razors that cut—and razors to cut off shackles: a must.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Revisionist views of such traditional fairy tales as Snow White, Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood . . .offered in the context of the modern lives of young women, who must confront the difference between the promises of sugar-coated fantasy and the bitter lessons of real life. ” — Michael Cart, Booklist (starred review)
“It’s a bit of a mystery how a slender, subversive book of flayed fairy tale poetry can chronicle how the world tries to rob young women of power, while at the same time handing them back that power. Teen girls should read this—so should their mothers, their aunts, their grandmothers…” — Gayle Forman, author of the New York Times-bestselling Just One Day/Just One Year duet
“Many of the poems read like something you might find on a smart, funny contemporary women’s website, probably going viral. . . . They each pack their own literary punch; she is, after all, a poet riffing on fairy tales.” — Elle.com
“A bloody poetic attack on the beauty myth that’s caustic, funny, and heartbreaking.” — E. Lockhart, author of We Were Liars
“Deft deployment of fairy-tale motifs and sharp-edged humor . . . Accompanied by stylized fantasy photographs as piercing as the poems themselves, this is sure to be passed around among readers thoroughly tired of being picked, prodded, pimped and primped to achieve an impossible perfection.” — Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books (starred review)
“Over and over again, Christine Heppermann’s poems reveal the worm in the messages young women get about love, sex, food, and bodies. These poems cast a harrowing but irresistible disenchantment.” — Sara Zarr, author of National Book Award finalist Story of a Girl
“Simply phenomenal. Heppermann’s honest voice grabs the reader with urgency. This collection is a champion for teens and adults who see our world as an advertisement for perfection that doesn’t exist. Readers will want to read these poems aloud over and over again.” — A.S. King, Printz Honor author of Reality Boy and Ask the Passengers
“Heppermann’s collection of teen angst is like a velvet bag full of gems to be poured out into the palm, held up to the light, studied, and saved to be brought out again and again on fitting occasions.” — Karen Hesse, Newbery Medal-winning author of Out of the Dust
“This powerful and provocative exploration of body image, media, and love broke my heart and made me gasp aloud with its relentless truth. Dark, unsettling, and altogether brilliant, Poisoned Apples is not to be missed.” — Rae Carson, author of the best-selling Girl of Fire and Thorns trilogy
“Anyone can read these wonderful poems, but I know women and girls especially will open Poisoned Apples and immediately tell their friends, show their friends, loan the book out, get it back, read it again and again until the cover falls off .” — Ron Koertge, author of Stoner & Spaz
It’s a bit of a mystery how a slender, subversive book of flayed fairy tale poetry can chronicle how the world tries to rob young women of power, while at the same time handing them back that power. Teen girls should read this—so should their mothers, their aunts, their grandmothers…
Revisionist views of such traditional fairy tales as Snow White, Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood . . .offered in the context of the modern lives of young women, who must confront the difference between the promises of sugar-coated fantasy and the bitter lessons of real life.
A bloody poetic attack on the beauty myth that’s caustic, funny, and heartbreaking.
Many of the poems read like something you might find on a smart, funny contemporary women’s website, probably going viral. . . . They each pack their own literary punch; she is, after all, a poet riffing on fairy tales.
Simply phenomenal. Heppermann’s honest voice grabs the reader with urgency. This collection is a champion for teens and adults who see our world as an advertisement for perfection that doesn’t exist. Readers will want to read these poems aloud over and over again.
Over and over again, Christine Heppermann’s poems reveal the worm in the messages young women get about love, sex, food, and bodies. These poems cast a harrowing but irresistible disenchantment.
Caustic, witty, sad, and angry, Heppermann articulates . . . the false promises, seductions, and deathly morass of popular culture’s imagery of girls’ bodies. What makes Heppermann’s poetry exceptional, however, is not the messages it carries but the intense, expressive drive that fuels it.
Horn Book (starred review)
Deft deployment of fairy-tale motifs and sharp-edged humor . . . Accompanied by stylized fantasy photographs as piercing as the poems themselves, this is sure to be passed around among readers thoroughly tired of being picked, prodded, pimped and primped to achieve an impossible perfection.
Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books (starred review)
Heppermann’s collection of teen angst is like a velvet bag full of gems to be poured out into the palm, held up to the light, studied, and saved to be brought out again and again on fitting occasions.
This powerful and provocative exploration of body image, media, and love broke my heart and made me gasp aloud with its relentless truth. Dark, unsettling, and altogether brilliant, Poisoned Apples is not to be missed.
Anyone can read these wonderful poems, but I know women and girls especially will open Poisoned Apples and immediately tell their friends, show their friends, loan the book out, get it back, read it again and again until the cover falls off .
A bloody poetic attack on the beauty myth that’s caustic, funny, and heartbreaking.
A bloody poetic attack on the beauty myth that’s caustic, funny, and heartbreaking.
07/01/2014 Gr 8 Up—Traditional folk and fairy tales collide with feminist observations of modern beauty and hygiene culture in this compilation of 50 free verse and easy to read poems. Each one grapples with the state of femininity with caustic wit, heavy with criticism. Readers will also be treated to moody and eye-catching artwork that complements the poems perfectly. The accessibility of the poems coupled with the striking book cover and photos will appeal to a wide range of readers. The poems should spark interesting questions and insights for contemplation about obtaining a pop culture-derived, air-brushed perfection. One weakness is a failure to consider diversity in femininity; more feminine readers might find the poems slightly insulting because of a tone of disdain toward beauty culture. Overall, however, this is an engaging and enjoyable volume.—Mindy Whipple, West Jordan Library, UT
★ 2014-06-10 A slim volume sharp as knives.Lacing traditional fairy tales through real-life perils, Heppermann produces short poems with raw pain, scathing commentary and fierce liberation. There’s no linear arc; instead, girls buck and fight and hurt. One poem takes the expression “You Go, Girl!” literally, banishing anyone with “wetness, dryness, tightness, looseness, / redness, yellowing, blackheads, whiteheads, the blues.” In a structure heartbreakingly inverted from “The Three Little Pigs” (and nodding to “Rumpelstiltskin”), one girl’s body goes from “a house of bricks, / point guard on the JV team” to “a house of sticks, / kindling in Converse high-tops,” until finally “she’s building herself out of straw / as light as the needle swimming in her bathroom scale. / The smaller the number, the closer to gold.” She’s her own wolf, destroying herself. Sexual repression, molestation and endless beauty judgments bite and sting, causing eating disorders, self-injury, internalization of rules—and rebellion. A hypothetical miller’s daughter says, “No, I can’t spin that room full of straw into gold. / …. / No, I can’t give you the child; / the child will never exist.” Gretel’s act of eating will literally rescue Hansel; Red Riding Hood reclaims sexual agency, declaring, “If that woodsman shows up now, / I will totally kick his ass.”Full of razors that cut—and razors to cut off shackles: a must. (author’s note, index of first lines, index of photographs) (Poetry. 13-17)