The New York Times Book Review - Amal El-Mohtar
The collection is at its strongest when troubling the boundaries between memory and memoir, exploring the terrain between childhood and adulthood. Recurring along with bears, snow and roses are a love of Boston and Budapest, and the sadness of moving between those places, and between the phases of life they represent…I deeply appreciated the echoing patterns in the curation of the whole, with wildly varied takes on similar motifs or stories pouring color out of crystal.
Publishers Weekly
★ 12/17/2018
This lush collection artfully gathers together many of World Fantasy Award winner Goss’s fairy tale–themed poems and short fiction published over the last 16 years, including her Locus-nominated story “Red as Blood and White as Bone.” As a Hungarian-American raised on Hans Christen Andersen and the Brothers Grimm, Goss takes obvious delight in reweaving classic European folk tales to reveal new, often deeply feminist, perspectives. In “The Gold Spinner,” Rumpelstiltskin is recast as a girl lying to save herself, while “Conversations with the Sea Witch” features the Little Mermaid as an old woman looking back on a life both difficult and well-lived. In “A Country Called Winter,” a college student must come to terms with her birthright as ice threatens to overtake the world, while “Mr. Fox” explores the balance of power between lovers, and the choice to say no to a future others have laid out is celebrated in “The Princess and the Frog.” Perhaps most poignant of all, “The Nightingale and the Rose” is a beautiful, sensitive reminder that storybook love is not all it’s cracked up to be. This toothsome collection is best read in one go. (Feb.)
From the Publisher
"The elegance of Goss's work has never ceased to amaze me. It feels effortless, but endlessly evocative and suggestive, flowing with the rhythms of both the natural world and the intimate socio-familial cosmos. Goss's language fits together like gems in a complex crown, a diadem of images and motifs, resting gently on the head, but with a deceptive weight."--Catherynne M. Valente, New York Times-bestselling author of Space Opera
"In Snow White Learns Witchcraft, Theodora Goss weaves words that look disturbingly like snow and feathers into new stories that are familiar but uniquely remade. A Goss heroine breathes life into silent castles, imprints her own image in darkling mirrors, and plucks enchanted apples from the hands of peddlers; she is a bear's bride, a newly minted queen, a thunderstorm of a woman and so much more. Dr. Goss cements her position as one of our foremost re-interpreters of fairy tales."--Angela Slatter, World Fantasy Award-winning author of The Bitterwood Bible
"What will you find in these pages, dear reader? Why, the encyclopedia of everything (as written by an owl), what the mirror really knows, rubies red with wolf's blood-and, surprise!--the secret of who actually spun that straw into gold. Ice, iron, apples, birds, bones, subversion: Theodora Goss's new collection of stories and poems Snow White Learns Witchcraft is woven of the finest spider silk, a funnel-web of faerie tales that will catch you fast and not let you go."--C. S. E. Cooney, World Fantasy Award-winning author of Bone Swans
School Library Journal
02/01/2019
Gr 10 Up—The author reimagines well-known fairy tales in this unique anthology of poetry and short stories. Goss revisits beloved characters, such as Snow White, Cinderella, and the Little Mermaid. Others, such as Thumbelina, Goldilocks, and even Little Red Riding Hood are recognizable yet fully refreshed in these blended stories, all with surprising twists and inventive updates. As with the original tales, many of these entries have darker themes or cruel twists. For example, "Gold Spinner" and "Snow White Learns Witchcraft" are intense, feminist tales, while "Ogress Queen" and "The Stepsister's Tale" are creepy and disturbing. Bears feature prominently; bears as foes, lovers, husbands, and ordinary citizens. Sometimes the bears are benign or sweet and other times the author skirts a darker line. The entries are grouped by folktale, putting all the variations together, allowing readers to visit different interpretations or points of view straightaway. Some of the language, sexuality, and imagery is mature. The work also features an introduction by the award-winning Jane Yolen. VERDICT An intriguing addition to any older teen or adult fairy tale or short story collection.—Kristen Rademacher, Marist High School, Chicago
