The Snow Queen [Paperback]

Amy Ehrlich (Adapter), Hans Christian Andersen (Author), Susan Jeffers (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 29, 1989

After the Snow Queen abducts her friend Kai, Gerda sets out on a perilous and magical journey to find him.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Lewis's commanding translation of this Andersen classic rings with nobility even as it maintains a colloquial jauntiness. The famously gripping narrative, of tender-hearted Gerda's epic quest to rescue her friend Kay from the frozen realm of the Snow Queen, is respectfully and insightfully introduced by Lewis. She points out, for example, that, of all of Andersen's major tales, The Snow Queen is "the most free from ill fortune, sorrow, unkind chance" and that its protagonists "make their own luck, good or bad, as they go"; and that it is the "only great classic fairy tale in which every positive character is a girl or woman . . . while the victim to be rescued is a boy." Barrett (see review of Beware Beware , above) contributes gentle watercolor and pencil illustrations, evoking an ageless fairy-tale realm while a frisson of danger lingers beneath her flower-filled images. Pictures of icy wastes--a flurry of blue, white and violet--are especially striking. Inset illustrations and incidental art as well as full- and double-page pictures are interspersed throughout the very substantial text in an agreeable book design that accommodates the youngest members of the target audience. Ages 4-up.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal

Grade 2-6-A beautifully illustrated translation of Andersen's well-known tale about the power of innocence and love triumphing over evil. The varying moods of Barrett's watercolor-and-pencil scenes perfectly complement the curious story. Softly glowing paintings of the two fair-skinned, sweet-faced children contrast with the stark, dramatic coldness of the Snow Queen's realm and the fantastic, almost eerie atmosphere of the robber band's forest hideout. The story's religious overtones are subtly echoed in the pictures: a cross formed by the topmost branches of an evergreen in Gerda's path; the cloud of angels surrounding the girl; her handful of white lillies at the end. Charming illustrative touches amidst double spreads of two-columned text highlight moments in the story. Both pages of text and full-page pictures are bordered by a fine black line, and the number of each chapter is decorated with a small vignette corresponding to that section of the tale. Surpassing all available translations and adaptations in its pictorial evocation of the story's essence, this version is sure to become the one of choice in most collections.
Susan Scheps, Shaker Heights Public Library, OH
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 40 pages
• Publisher: Dial Books / a pied piper book (September 29, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803706928
• ISBN-13: 978-0803706927
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,068,918 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enchanted Wintery Land, August 15, 2001

By 

Rebecca Johnson "The Rebecca Review" (Washington State) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Snow Queen (Young Classics) (Hardcover)

Hans Christian Andersen is one of the most famous writers of fairy tales. The Snow Queen is one of the longest tales and one of his best known. He would listen to folk and fairy tales as a child and when he grew up, he wrote some of these stories in his own words.

Anderson began writing The Snow Queen on December 5, 1844 and it was published sixteen days later in book form! His fairy tales made him famous and the stories have been translated into more than 100 languages and some have been made into films, like the Little Mermaid.

Nilesh Mistry is one of my favorite illustrators. He was born in Bombay and moved to London, England in 1975. His books include The Illustrated Book of Fairy Tales and Aladdin. I simply want to own every book he illustrates!

In the story of The Snow Queen, you will find illustrations and photography that shows the settings of the original book. This classic is again brought to life, yet never so beautifully as with Nilesh Mistry's art. Kai is whirled away by the icily beautiful Snow Queen. His playmate Gerda sets out to find him and encounters many adventures in his quest. This is a story I remember very well, yet I had to imagine the pictures in my own mind as a child.

In this book, she looks hauntingly similar to how I pictured her as a child. "The driver stood up, in a coat and hat of purest snow. She was a woman, tall and glittering. She was the Snow Queen."

The story begins with a story about the Devil who laughed at his own cleverness. He creates a mirror that sets people against one another by making people see the ugly side of things. If a splinter of glass from the mirror ever entered a person's eye, their heart would become a lump of solid ice. (quite a lesson there to be sure!)

When the "imps" decide to take the mirror up to the angels and try to make fun of them, it falls and shatteres into a hundred pieces. When "Kai" finds a grain of glass in his heart his entire attitude to life is changed. "Keep away from me!" he screeches at his friend Gerda.

Then one day he falls off his sled and sees the Snow Queen. She kisses him with her cold lips on his forehead and she takes him away through a cloud of darkness up into the sky. When Kai doesn't come home, Gerda goes looking for him. She sings to the river and drifts in a boat down a river to find Kai.

Gerda is a contrast to Kai and is loving and kind. Only when a spell is broken is evil defeated. After the story a page of where the event takes place helps make the story more interesting. Finally, we can explore the real and imaginary world of The Snow Queen.

Even as an adult, I am fascinated by fairy tales. They appeal to the child in us all and to something deep inside of us that knows, good will triumph over evil, in the end.

~The Rebecca Review

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mary Engelbreit's "Snow Queen" artwork is ENCHANTING!, September 29, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Mary Engelbreit's The Snow Queen (Hardcover)

If you're looking for a special book for any child, look no further; pick up Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen", illustrated by Mary Engelbreit. This delightful story will not only whisk your child away within it's beautiful artwork, it will mesmorize you as well! Mary Engelbreit does it again with her incredible talent, making this book, for our family, a book to be cherished and handed down for many years to come. Her wonderful artwork in this book will captivate whoever reads it and bring a smile to anyone's face! :-) (Also wonderful as a coffee table book!)

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Oh the weather outside is frightful..., December 21, 2005

By 

E. R. Bird "Ramseelbird" (Manhattan, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Snow Queen (Paperback)

I once read an article in Horn Book Magazine (a review source of titles and articles on children's literature) that lamented the millions of poor translations of Hans Christian Andersen polluting the minds of our young people today. The review mentioned that stories like, "The Snow Queen", which were originally written in a snappy vernacular, have been dumbed down and drained of all energy by their American translators. With this idea fresh in my mind I found myself in possession of a very particular copy of "The Snow Queen" and I was able to test this theory myself. Now due to the wacky nature of Amazon.com, the website has lumped together the reviews of every single version of this Anderson story. You will see that some of the reviews refer to Nilesh Mistry's, some refer to the audio book, some to Eileen Kernaghan's, and some (God help us all) to Mary Engelbreit. None of these, however, are the version that I am reviewing. After careful consideration, I selected the edition retold by Amy Ehrlich and illustrated by Susan Jeffers. The Ehrlich/Jeffers team has banded together to bring us every fairy tale from Thumbelina to Cinderella. With this 1982 classic edition, they bring all the creepy and crawly elements of Andersen's riveting tale to a kind of tame middlebrow life.

Most people don't remember that "The Snow Queen" begins when the devil creates a mirror that reflects everything good as bad. By a quirk of fate the mirror is smashed one day (the details of this accident are left unclear) and the tiny pieces go spinning into the atmosphere. If these splinters enter your eye, everything will look ugly to you. If they enter your heart, it will turn instantly to ice. Got it? Good. Cause sure enough, two small pieces enter the eye and the heart of a boy named Kai. When this happens he stops playing with his best playmate Gerta and instead falls under the seductive spell of the mysterious and magnificently pale Snow Queen. Gerta goes in search of her friend but is waylaid by a variety of different adventures. She escapes an overly loving old witch, is taken in by a prince and princess, falls into the power of a thief girl and her kin, and at last saves Kai from the Snow Queen herself. By the end of the book, neither kid is a child any longer and their home is just as they left it.

Obviously "The Snow Queen" is one big ole story about growing up. The idea of the devil's mirror causing someone to despise anything they see and grow a suddenly cold heart... well that's just another way of describing adolescence, is it not? Andersen obviously borrowed quite a lot from that classic old tale, "East of the Sun, West of the Moon", in which another girl goes off to save the man she loves from the machinations of a wicked woman. Heck, "Tam Lin" was probably an influence as well. The best version of this particular story I ever read was by Kara Dalkey. It was a tale named, "The Lady of the Ice Garden" and can be found in "Firebirds: An Anthology of Original Science Fiction and Fantasy". It is not, however, appropriate for children. Kids today will probably look at "The Snow Queen" and instantly think of the White Witch from "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe". I cannot think, however, that this is a bad thing.

As for the Jeffers/Ehrlich version, it's all right. As an illustrator, Jeffers has apparently decided to make Kai and Gerta definitely children. I guess that lowers the creepiness factor when the Snow Queen lures the boy to her sleigh and wraps him in her furs. Jeffers really captures beautifully every diamond in the Snow Queen's dress and every strand of her white white hair. There is the odd stylistic choice here and there, though. When Gerta surprises the prince and princess in their bed, it is not your typical mattress affair but rather large his and her flower petals. I can't think that they're comfortable (or even particularly practical). The illustrations have been created, according to the book, "using a fine-line pen with ink and dyes. They were applied over a detailed pencil drawing that was then erased". As a result, the book is as soft as a colored pencil, but with a level of detail and intricacy normally associated with pen and ink.

Obviously I don't know enough about the original version of "The Snow Queen" (or, as Andersen called it, "Sneedronningen") to know whether or not this book is a worthy version to read to your tots. At any rate, it tells the full story, warts and all, and will provide them with what may well be the most Freudian-toned fairy tale ever to grace their little brains. A fun edition of a rather odd tale.