Play Book Tag discussion

Snow White – Matt Phelan
2**

This is an imaginative retelling of the classic fairy tale, set in 1930s New York City. In the throes of the Great Depression, Samantha White fights for her very life against a stepmother from hell.

Samantha is an heiress whose mother nicknamed her Snow White. But her mother died when she was young and her father, a lonely Wall-street genius, succumbed to the charms of a Ziegfeld Follies star with ruthless ambition. Snow is sent off to boarding school, returning to New York only after her father has died. But Stepmom is enraged to discover that her husband changed his will, leaving virtually everything to his daughter, unless the daughter dies before she reaches maturity. Stepmom knows that can be arranged….

This is a much darker story than Phelan’s other graphic works, and his illustrations are suitably black-and-white rather than in color. They give a dark, sinister, bleak feel to the whole work.

I did love how Phelan wove in some history of the Great Depression and the Hooverville communities. Using a gang of orphaned kids as “The Seven” was a great idea.

Of course, it’s a fairy tale, and as in the original, there will be a handsome prince to wake the drugged Snow White. The last four pages are rendered in muted pastels, which support the happy ending we crave. Still, I didn’t like it much. Perhaps the current situation in our country is bleak enough without another dark experience in my reading life.


LINK to my review