Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty

Every little girl goes through her princess phase, whether she wants to be Snow White or Cinderella, Belle or Ariel. But then we grow up. And life is not a fairy tale.

Christine Heppermann's collection of fifty poems puts the ideals of fairy tales right beside the life of the modern teenage girl. With piercing truths reminiscent of Laurie Halse Anderson and Ellen Hopkins, this is a powerful and provocative book for every young woman. E. Lockhart, author of We Were Liars, calls it "a bloody poetic attack on the beauty myth that's caustic, funny, and heartbreaking."

Cruelties come not just from wicked stepmothers, but also from ourselves. There are expectations, pressures, judgment, and criticism. Self-doubt and self-confidence. But there are also friends, and sisters, and a whole hell of a lot of power there for the taking. In fifty poems, Christine Heppermann confronts society head on. Using fairy tale characters and tropes, Poisoned Apples explores how girls are taught to think about themselves, their bodies, and their friends. The poems range from contemporary retellings to first-person accounts set within the original tales, and from deadly funny to deadly serious. Complemented throughout with black-and-white photographs from up-and-coming artists, this is a stunning and sophisticated book to be treasured, shared, and paged through again and again.

These are not the fairy tales you know. This is what happens after the happily ever after.

• Fairy Tale Retellings: Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and the Little Mermaid confront a world of Photoshopped poems, Abercrombie dressing rooms, and the pressure to be perfect.
• Feminist Poetry: Sharp, witty, and heartbreaking verses that take on the beauty myth and give voice to the wicked queens, ugly stepsisters, and silenced princesses.
• Dark Fantasy Themes: From the raw honesty of eating disorders to the complexities of toxic friendships, these poems venture into the dark woods of modern teenage life.
• YA Contemporary Poetry: For fans of Ellen Hopkins and Laurie Halse Anderson, these poems capture the authentic, unfiltered experience of being a girl in a world of impossible expectations.

Once upon a time . . .
you were a princess,
or an orphan.
A wicked witch,
fairy godmother,
prom queen,
valedictorian,
team captain,
Big Bad Wolf,
Little Bo Peep.
But you are more than just a hero or a villain, cursed or charmed. You are everything in between.
You are everything.

In fifty poems, Christine Heppermann places fairy tales side by side with the modern teenage girl. Powerful and provocative, deadly funny and deadly serious, this collection is one to read, to share, to treasure, and to come back to again and again.

“Simply phenomenal. Heppermann’s honest voice grabs the reader with urgency. This collection is a champion for teens and adults who see our world as an advertisement for perfection that doesn’t exist. Readers will want to read these poems aloud over and over again.” - A.S. King, Printz Honor author of Reality Boy and Ask the Passengers

“This powerful and provocative exploration of body image, media, and love broke my heart and made me gasp aloud with its relentless truth. Dark, unsettling, and altogether brilliant, Poisoned Apples is not to be missed.” - Rae Carson, author of the best-selling Girl of Fire and Thorns trilogy

“Anyone can read these wonderful poems, but I know women and girls especially will open Poisoned Apples and immediately tell their friends, show their friends, loan the book out, get it back, read it again and again until the cover falls off .” - Ron Koertge, author of Stoner & Spaz

“Heppermann taps into the interior thought of teenage girls, writing about their issues with compassion, wry humor, and spot-on accuracy. Often using female characters from classic fairy tales and fiction as a springboard, she explores the portrayal of girls as objects, the feelings they have of being trapped inside less-than-perfect bodies, and the inexperience they bring to encounters with toxic people and things. Adolescence is fraught with perils and these poems showcase many common ones. Heppermann’s collection of teen angst is like a velvet bag full of gems to be poured out into the palm, held up to the light, studied, and saved to be brought out again and again on fitting occasions.” - Karen Hesse, Newbery Medal-winning author of Out of the Dust

“Heppermann’s collection of teen angst is like a velvet bag full of gems to be poured out into the palm, held up to the light, studied, and saved to be brought out again and again on fitting occasions.” - Karen Hesse, Newbery Medal-winning author of Out of the Dust

“A bloody poetic attack on the beauty myth that’s caustic, funny, and heartbreaking.” - E. Lockhart, author of We Were Liars

“Many of the poems read like something you might find on a smart, funny contemporary women’s website, probably going viral. . . . They each pack their own literary punch; she is, after all, a poet riffing on fairy tales.” - Elle.com

“I would buy every middle and high school library and classroom a copy of this book if I could. It deserves to be read, studied, discussed. By girls, yes . . . But boys too. Just as we can tell girls that they are worth poetry, we can tell boys that they are worth our faith in their empathy.” - Anne Ursu, author of Breadcrumbs

“Deft deployment of fairy-tale motifs and sharp-edged humor . . . Accompanied by stylized fantasy photographs as piercing as the poems themselves, this is sure to be passed around among readers thoroughly tired of being picked, prodded, pimped and primped to achieve an impossible perfection.” - Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books (starred review)

“Caustic, witty, sad, and angry, Heppermann articulates . . . the false promises, seductions, and deathly morass of popular culture’s imagery of girls’ bodies. What makes Heppermann’s poetry exceptional, however, is not the messages it carries but the intense, expressive drive that fuels it.” - Horn Book (starred review)

“The fairy tale path, dirt and cobblestone, weaves through a dark wood. The fast shiny freeway of now zooms past where the woods used to be. Sometimes the path and the freeway intersect. Sometimes they are the same road. Christine Heppermann’s amazing poems come from each of these places. They are moving, mind-bending, sad, and ambivalent poems. But they are also really funny and, in the end, triumphant. I tried to read some of them aloud, but my voice kept cracking because of the lumps that kept forming in my throat. (And those were funny and triumphant ones.) Try it yourself. I dare you.” - Lynne Rae Perkins, Newbery Medal-winning author of Criss Cross

“It’s a bit of a mystery how a slender, subversive book of flayed fairy tale poetry can chronicle how the world tries to rob young women of power, while at the same time handing them back that power. Teen girls should read this—so should their mothers, their aunts, their grandmothers…” - Gayle Forman, author of the New York Times-bestselling Just One Day/Just One Year duet

“Christine Heppermann writes with a brilliant wizard’s pen. If redemption comes to us in stunning, sidelong ways, via metaphor, parallel thinking, reshaped tales with new characters who might be us, this is a book that will save. Not only you, but so many people you know. Take a look.” - Naomi Shihab Nye, author of National Book Award finalist 19 Varieties of Gazelle

“Over and over again, Christine Heppermann’s poems reveal the worm in the messages young women get about love, sex, food, and bodies. These poems cast a harrowing but irresistible disenchantment.” - Sara Zarr, author of National Book Award finalist Story of a Girl

“Lacing traditional fairy tales through real-life perils, Heppermann produces short poems with raw pain, scathing commentary and fierce liberation. . . . Full of razors that cut—and razors to cut off shackles: a must.” - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Revisionist views of such traditional fairy tales as Snow White, Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood . . .offered in the context of the modern lives of young women, who must confront the difference between the promises of sugar-coated fantasy and the bitter lessons of real life. ” - Michael Cart, Booklist (starred review)