THE LOST PRINCESS CHRONICLES

A young man’s worth is tested in Waterman’s YA fantasy retelling of a familiar story.

This reimagining of classic German fairy tale “Snow White” focuses on the King of the Fairies. At first, he’s simply a young man named James White who’s “just witty enough and just smart enough to muddle through each day.” In a dense forest, his courage, compassion, and strength of purpose are tested as he embarks on an unsettling odyssey through a land of fairies, elves, trolls, water sprites, carnivorous Stonebacks and Rootfangs, fluffy spiders, and a treelike giant with two heads. The narrative, conceived as a series of scrolls by an Elvish scribe, begins with an account of the fatherless, 7-year-old Snow White asking her castle’s sentient Wishing Well, “How did it all begin?” Her return in a later scroll, near the book’s end, includes the scribe’s hint that there’s “something not quite right,” which leads into a second book to come. Overall, this is a deliciously offbeat, fantastical saga that will be suitable for many teens and adults, bearing in mind that the depictions of violence—ordered by power-hungry, half-beast/half-human Grausam—are graphic. It’s also a bit overlong and might have benefited from a stronger edit. However, the familiar, Disney-esque elements of the “Snow White” story—the wishing well, singing dwarves, the vain and evil queen—receive well-developed backstories. It’s a tale of a high-stakes struggle between good and evil, and leading the good side is Aarde the Faun, protector of the Enchanted Realm. Along the way, Waterman addresses themes of manipulation, deception, corruption, and redemption in tale with moral asides (“every choice one makes is a reflection of one’s self”) and sly humor (an ad for a “Lime in a Coconut” drink—likely inspired by Nilsson’s real-life 1972 novelty song “Coconut”—becomes important). Quirky language further enlivens the plot, as when a two-headed giant is called an “anomaly of expectations,” a carnival is said to have “foofaraw and razzmatazz,” and words of wisdom “tug” on characters’ “weeds of woefulness.”

An often-engaging fairy-tale origin story, although one in need of judicious editing.