Project Disney: Book and Movie Review: Little Snow White by the Brothers Grimm (No Spoiler and Spoiler section included)

Project Disney is hosted by Picture Me Reading. Its goal is to read all the classic novels that inspired the Disney films and compare them to the beloved adaptations. I'm a self proclaimed Disney Fanatic so I'm excited to take part in this project. 

Book: Little Snow White
Author: Brothers Grimm
Publication: 1812
Source: Project Glutenburg
Rating: 5/5 stars

Her skin white as snow,  red as blood, and her hair as black as ebony. The daughter her mother had always dreamed of one day having. When the queen dies during childbirth and the king takes on a new jealous wife who wants to be fairest in the land Snow White's future could be in trouble.

I'm trying to catch up with Picture Me Reading's Project Disney. This was the first movie they did for Project  Disney back in February.

Credit

Spoiler Free Review:
Her skin as white as snow, red as blood, and her hair as black as ebony was the daugther the queen always dreamed of having. When Little Snow White's mother dies during childbirth and her father takes on a new, jealous, beautiful wife Little Snow White will have a troublesome future.

Little Snow White is a very dark tale because the queen is very evil and tries to kill snow white in various ways that the Disney movie does not explain. Snow White as a character is a lot like the girl we see in the Disney movie.  Little Snow White does remind me a lot of the Disney movie otherwise and it is a very quick read that will make you fall in love with the original fairy tale. I really enjoying reading the book and comparing it to the Disney Movie.

Credit

Movie Comparison (Spoilers Included):
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves is Walt Disney's first full length animated picture.

The beginning of the story pretty much starts the same as the Disney movie explaining about how pretty

Credit

Snow White is and how jealous the queen is of her beauty. The novel and the movie quickly introduce us to the magic mirror. While Snow White is young the queen is the fairest in the land, but as Snow White matures the mirror begins to bring up her name. A huntsmen is sent to kill Snow White. Snow White weeps and promises to run away. The huntsmen kills a pig instead and the Queen eats the pig's heart believing it was Snow White's.

Meanwhile Snow White has found the dwarves home. Unlike the Disney movie she doesn't find the house to be a mess, but really clean. Snow White is the one that kind of messes up the house. The dwarves come home and start asking who had ate their food, sat in their chairs, and slept in their beds only to find Snow White still sleeping there. It reminded me a bit of Goldilocks and the Three Bears when the dwarves came home. They don't wake her and they wait to ask her name until morning. They tell Snow White she can stay as long as she agrees to cook and clean. Snow White agrees and the dwarves become very protective of her much like the Disney movie.

Credit

One thing Disney did add to Snow White is the dwarves names. It is always a fun game in our family and with my friends if we can see who can name all seven dwarves. It even won us a towel one time on a trip to Florida when they played trivia on the plane. Doc, Happy, Sneezy, Doopey, Grumpy, Sleepy, and Bashful are their seven names.

Disney loves to add talking animals to their movies. In the story the animals did not help Snow White tidy the house. In fact she didn't really talk or sing to animals in the novel. From an adaptation prospective I totally understand why Disney adds songs to the movies. That is what makes them memorable is when the song is stuck in your head all day.

All is well for Snow White for a while until the Queen begins to ask her mirror who is the fairest in the land.

Credit

Since the mirror can tell no lie he tells the queen that Snow White is alive and well where the Dwarves dwell. The Queen is furious that the huntsmen tricked her and sets out to kill Snow White herself.

The dwarves know that is it only a matter of time before the Queen finds the cottage and they warn Snow White not to open the door for anybody. When the Queen comes by dressed as a peddler Snow White opens the door willing and buys from the queen. The first time she has beautiful silk. The Queen laces Snow White up to tight basically strangling her to death. The dwarves come home to find Snow White and are able to cut the laces and revive her. The second time the Queen comes by dressed as a peddler Snow White is a bit more weary, but she stills opens the door to find the queen has beautiful combs. The queens offers to

Credit

brush Snow White's hair and isn't even through with one stroke before Snow White falls to the ground. The Dwarves find the comb and revive Snow White. The Queen is furious that her futile attempts didn't work. She makes an apple that is poison and this time she disguises herself differently to go see Snow White. Snow White is very hesitant this time and won't buy the apple. The Queen has made the apple half poison and half not. The Queen takes a bit from the not poison part and proves to Snow White the apple is safe.

Credit

This time the Dwarves can not find what is wrong with Snow White and they believe her to be dead. They believe that Snow White, the daughter of the king is too pretty to be buried in the Earth so they order a coffin of glass with her name painted on the side with gold. They place it on the mountain and one of the dwarves is always watching over Snow White.

Obviously the Disney movie did not cover all the other attempts to kill Snow White. Disney just kept the poison apple as their main focus. In a lot of ways the Queen was more evil in this story than she was in the Disney movie. The glass coffin bit was kept for the Disney movie.

One day the king's son, the prince arrives and he sees Snow White in the coffin. He asks the dwarves if he

Credit

can buy the coffin so he can see Snow White every day. This part was a bit weird if you ask me. The dwarf that is watching Snow White says that she is worth all the gold in the world. The prince says that he will treat her well and the dwarf agrees to the arrangement. When Snow White is being carried back to his castle the piece of apple falls from her mouth. She wakes up and sits up to ask where she is at. The prince responds that they are on the way back to his kingdom and tells her that she will be his wife. Snow White agrees and they live happily ever after.

Except for the fact that the mirror rated Snow White out again and the Queen knows that Snow White is still the fairest in the land. The Queen was forced to dance in extremely hot shoes until she fell dead. That is what makes this story so much darker than the Disney movie.

Credit

Disney did change a few things more such as true loves kiss part. Disney really like true love's kiss and they have used it in many movies, but in the story Snow White just had to spit out the apple to wake up, no kiss necessary. The movie did not have that cruel of an ending for the Queen although we do assume that the Prince and Snow White got married.








There are so many beautiful pictures I couldn't display them all, but I would like to let you know that there are many pictures if you look up Little Snow White by the Brothers Grimm.

Credit

Snow White by far is not my favorite Disney movie and Snow White is not my favorite princess by far. When I watch the movie I think of how far Disney has come with technology since they created this film. I believe in a lot of ways the Grimm fairy tales are way too short and they are hard for Disney to expand while still staying true to the tale. I believe Disney did really good with Snow White as an adaptation. As a film I would have liked to see more. I believe that if Disney remade Snow White today it would have been a better movie. Honestly if they did that I would hate the new movie because it wasn't the original. What I do like about Snow White is the the seven dwarves are adorable. I feel with the book and the movie there are a lot of unanswered questions about Snow White and her story.

My request go check it out. I  really liked reading the original story. 

Thanks for reading

Rachael