9 Snow White Retellings to Get You Ready for Disney's Live-Action Film

Once upon a time, everything was fine and fairy tales knew their place. Humpty Dumpty sat on his wall, Jack and Jill walked legally up the hills, and the wicked queen got on with her devious plotting. But then the humans hacked into their database and ruined everything. 

Suddenly, it's all mixed up and happily-ever-after is no longer guaranteed. But maybe these changes will let the real truth be told about those stories that everyone knows …

Princess Snow is missing. The corrupt King Matthias and his wife will do anything to get her back. But what if she doesn't want to be found? Essie, princess of the icy planet Thanda, now lives a quiet life where she dedicates her days to coding and repairs for the seven loyal drones who run the local mines. When a mysterious young man named Dane crash-lands near her home, Essie agrees to help the pilot repair his ship. But soon she realizes that Dane's arrival was far from accidental, and that she can no longer avoid her destiny.

Willadende is an orphaned child and captive scullery maid with a curious ability. She can sense magical odors. This power is a strange one, even in a word where magic is prevalent, and it leads her into an apprenticeship with a revered herbalist. Soon, Willa is mingling with the highest circles of magic in the Ducal court. 

But there is treachery afoot. Lurking within the castle walls are traitors and backstabbers who want to control the court. With her unique senses and growing knowledge, it falls upon young Willadende to tackle the ultimate evil.

Jane Yolen has published more than 150 books and has won practically every award in her field, including two Nebulas, the Caldecott Medal, and the World Fantasy Award. Sister Emily's Lightship was her first collection of short fiction for adults, comprised of 28 stories with inspiration taken from classic folk and fairy-tales. "Snow in Summer" reimagines Snow White as the story of an Appalachian woman whose stepmother is a snake-handling fundamentalist with dark machinations.

Princess Winter may bear some gruesome scars on her face but that does nothing to dim her grace, kindness, and beauty. She's said to be even more breath-taking than her stepmother, the envious and wicked Queen Levana. When Winter develops feelings for the handsome palace guard, Jacin, she fears that the Queen will put an end to things. 

The tides are turning against Levana and she'll do anything to retain her iron grip on power. Winter is the one who has the power to incite revolution, but she'll need all the help she can get. Step forward the cyborg mechanic Cinder …

Young Snow White is no wilting fairy-tale princess in this story, which transports the action to the Wild West of myth. Her father, a Nevada silver baron, forced her mother, the daughter of the Crow tribe, into marriage. When her mother died in childbirth, Snow White became an outcast in her own home, a half-native, half-white child with a cruel new stepmother who has tried to "civilize" her. 

Eager to get out, Snow runs away to find her mother's people, but a ruthless Pinkerton agent has been hired to retrieve her. Working alongside seven rugged miners, Snow must prove that she has the guts and strength to survive in the lawless West and save herself from danger.

After turning 20, Boy Novak decides to leave home for a new life in Flax Hill, Massachusetts, the last stop on the bus route she took from New York. Flax Hill is also the hometown of Arturo Whitman, a local craftsman and the father of Snow, a mild-mannered little girl with whom Novak becomes enamored. She joins this seemingly lovely family and soon births Bird, Snow's little sister. But the arrival of a new generation exposes the strange darkness at the heart of this clan. 

Maya fled her home country of India to join her father's household in England after the suspicious deaths of her family. Now part of polite London society, Maya returns to her profession as a physician for the poor and uses bits of magic she managed to pick up in childhood to weave otherworldly defenses. But she's not safe from the enemy that slaughtered her loved ones. She and her seven animal avatars, disguised as her loyal pets, will have to take on the ultimate danger lest it ensnare her and use her magic for evil. 

Legendary fantasy author Tanith Lee blends this classic fairy-tale with the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone for a story about the generational trauma of mothers and daughters. Arpazia is the aging queen who paces the halls of a warlord’s palace. Her heart is as cold as ice, having survived a lifetime of trauma and pain that saw her made a queen and a mother while still an adolescent. She has only one passion in life: for the mysterious hunter who courts the outlawed old gods of the woodland. 

Princess Coira lives a lonely life, ignored by her parents and the court alike. She expects to grow into womanhood alone, but Arpazia cannot bear the sight of her own daughter, whose presence forever reminds her of the agony of her conception. So, she sells her away, sending her into the forest where she expects to never see her again. But the ties that bind them are inextricable, as is their shared blood.