Book Review :: "The Snow Child"

The Snow Child, Eowyn Ivey

Synopsis:  In the 1920s, Alaska is a forbidding place.  Winters consist of bitter cold and blizzards, where even the sun won't shine for a period of two weeks, leaving the inhabitants in perpetual darkness; summer is a time of frantic clearing land, plowing, and planting, praying that the crops survive so that winter can be survived.  Recent arrivals Jack and Mabel find it especially grueling: both getting on in years, they moved to Alaska to escape the memory of their only child, who was stillborn.  Jack hasn't brought down any big game and winter is coming on and it's beginning to look more grim still, but in a moment of frivolity belying their age, the estranged couple build a beautiful snow child in the first flurries of the season.  The next morning, Jack leaves early to go on yet another hunt in hopes of finding a moose to down, and the snow child--along with the beautiful red mittens they had put on her--have vanished; all that remains is a pile of powder and one set of small footprints, leading from the center of the snow pile into the woods on the other side.  A small child appears later that day with a red fox by her side, and leads Jack to a moose.  Who is the girl?  Where did she come from?  How can she control the snow and frost the way she seems to?  And how in heaven's name does she survive alone in the bitter cold winter of the Alaskan wilderness?  Is she truly a child of magic, as Mabel comes to believe?  And what will they do when they fall in love with her, the child they always wanted and never had?

My Rating:  *  *  *  *  *

I loved this book.  It speaks so poignantly of love, loss, survival, parenthood, friendship, loyalty, sacrifice, support, and secrets.  It's true that I love many books, but this is one that has truly stayed with me ever since I turned the last page.  Just like Mabel, I came to fall in love with Alaska and all that it represents.

Risky Content: 
Adult Scenes:  Just one.  Nothing particularly explicit.  Just two people who have become strangers, getting to know each other again.
Swear words:  Not that I can recall.  Perhaps such things as "damn" and "hell" and "shit" occasionally.
Violence:  Just the typical stuff you'd expect from a tale of brutal survival in 1920s Alaska.  :)