By the Book: The Fairest of Them All

Mirror mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all? The story of Snow White is so familiar to many of us, and part of our earliest experiences with fairytales, and what we know of it is shaped in no small part by Disney. But around the world, this story of a girl, her jealous stepmother, and a prince who saves the day (sometimes), takes various forms. Professor Maria Tatar's The Fairest of Them All: Snow White and 21 Tales of Mothers and Daughters, collects these stories - so we wanted to get her take on the role of fairytales and Snow White in understanding our society, femininity and why this story has endured. And then in Footnotes, we speak about our favourite books that feature girls, in light of the International Day of the Girl Child.