Snow in Summer: Fairest of Them All

by Jane Yolen

Overview

An unforgettable take on a favorite fairy tale by multi-award-winning author Jane Yolen

Summer's life in the mountains of West Virginia feels like a fairy tale--her parents dote on her, and she's about to get a new baby brother. But when the baby dies soon after he's born, taking their mother with him, Summer's life turns grim. Things get even worse when her father marries a woman who brings poisons and magical mirrors into Summer's world. Stepmama puts up a pretty face and Summer's father is under her spell, but Summer suspects she's up to no good--and is afraid she is powerless to stop her.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101545881
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	11/10/2011
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	10 - 13 Years

About the Author

Jane Yolen is the author of over three hundred books, including Owl Moon, The Devil's Arithmetic, and How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night? Her books and stories have won numerous awards and accolades including the Caldecott Award, National Book Award Finalist, Golden Kite Award, Christopher Medal, The World Fantasy Award, Sydney Taylor Book Award, Maud Hart Lovelace Award and numerous state award lists. She splits her time between Massachusetts and St. Andrews, Scotland.

Read an Excerpt

Mirror, mirror on the wall…

"Fear the Hunter," the mirror's masked face said, startling me out of my memories.

“Fear the Hunter, fear the knife,
Fear the edge that takes a life.”

The mirror spoke as if Hunter was capitalized, like a name or a rank of some kind.

"The Hunter? Who's that?" I asked, but the mirror had gone silent. In the silence I heard a car door slam right outside.

Stepmama was home.

I slipped back out of her room so fast my shadow had trouble keeping up, and I headed down the hallway as if going to the bathroom.

That was where she found me.

Editorial Reviews

Drawing from her eponymous short story of 2000, Yolen offers a gripping 20th-century adaptation of Snow White, starring Snow in Summer, a girl growing up in West Virginia in the 1940s. Summer’s beloved Papa, bereft over the death of his wife and son, is seduced by a beautiful but wicked witch, who marries him and takes over the household, using her wiles to render Papa and the rest of the town helpless while she abuses her stepdaughter. Only widowed Cousin Nancy resists the witch and offers aid to Summer via some down-home magic. “Your caul, child.... I retrieved it right after you were born. Salted it down, let it dry over the rim of a bowl. I’ve kept it for you all this time.” Based on the traditional Snow White—complete with a magic mirror and seven dwarfs (more or less), along with some Appalachian folklore, post-Depression era culture, and snake-handling evangelicals—this story is beautifully written and deliciously scary, with just enough differences from familiar versions to keep readers guessing. Ages 10–up. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

Yolen spins an interesting variation of the classical Snow White story, setting it in a small town in West Virginia in the 1940s. Snow in Summer--named after the beautiful white flowers in the front yard and called Summer for short--is 7 years old when her mother dies. After her death, Summer's father, Lemuel, is swallowed up by grief. Summer and her Cousin Nancy, who lives next door, do their best to hold things together as they watch Lemuel fade. Summer herself tells most of what happens in the years that follow, but occasional chapters are narrated by Cousin Nancy and, eventually, by Summer's stepmother, who has enchanted Lemuel in hopes of getting control of his land. Stepmother saps the remaining vitality from Lemuel and makes Summer's life a sequence of torments. The pace starts to pick up when Summer has her first period. Stepmother, convinced by now that Summer will not join her in what she calls "the craft," arranges to have the girl killed. Summer has only the advice of a magic mirror and, eventually, seven small friends to aid her. Can she survive? Yolen folds in references to folk tales and songs as well as such classics as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and the Just So Stories, giving the narrative a metafictive lift. A quiet and compelling story more closely tied to the classical fairy tale than the now-popular Disney version. (author's note) (Fantasy. 9-12)

Kirkus Reviews