Bookverdict.com

Gr 4–8—Spanning the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression, Phelan's noir-esque adaption of the classic fairy tale is atmospheric, clever, and touching. Samantha White, affectionately called Snow White by her ailing mother, is sent off to a boarding school as her father, the King of Wall Street, grieves his wife's death by marrying the dazzling Queen of the Follies. Banished from her home by her stepmother, the young woman returns a decade later after her father's mysterious death. Not content with the fortune left to her in her husband's will, the menacing bob-haire...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

Phelan has visited the 1930s Dust Bowl in The Storm in the Barn (rev. 11/09), early-1900s vaudevillian Buster Keaton in Bluffton (rev. 11/13), and late-nineteenth-century explorers in Around the World (rev. 11/11). Here he heads off to glittery, pre-Depression era New York City to re-vision the Grimms' fairy tale. The book opens in 1928 with a stern-looking man asking a street urchin, "What's the story here?" as the NYPD cordons off what seems to be the dead body of a woman in a store-window holiday display. The rest of the book leads up to the answer. In a flashback to 1918, we s...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

After poisoning her wealthy husband, Samantha "Snow" White's stepmother decides Samantha is next; fleeing, Samantha is rescued by seve...Log In or Sign Up to Read More