The Snow Child

A wonderful commentary on family, the bonds we share between those we love, and identity.

I picked up The Snow Child initially because it dealt with homesteading--been there--in an unforgiving climate--ain't been there, thank heavens. And it certainly painted a true picture of how difficult a way of life it is. But it was the characters and the fairy tale-ish element (it was as grim as those old Grimm tales at times) that kept me guessing--was the snow child real or not?--and kept me reading. I didn't want it to end.

A tender story lovingly told, The Snow Child is a blend of historical fiction, magical realism, and a fairy tale for adults.

This is an unusual read that completely drew me in and moved me to the core. The author seems to be saying, Nature can be harsh and our place within it tenuous. She uses snow as the perfect metaphor for impermanence, for all that is fleeting—joy and sorrow, childhood and innocence, for the miracle of life itself. 

The Snow Child depicts a maybe real, maybe imaginary little girl bringing joy to a childless, homesteading couple in 1920s Alaska.

In this bestselling debut novel, released in 2016, a couple that yearns for a child of their own is visited by a nymph who appears and disappears in the snow drifts on their homestead. In her novel, Eowyn Ivy manages to sustain the reader’s belief that this girl could in fact be real, without directly saying one way or the other. 
Why do this in an essentially realist portrayal of hardscrabble life in rural Alaska? Again, I see it… show more.

Perhaps no other novel falls as perfectly into both the categories of historical fiction and fairy tale.

Set in 1920s Alaska, The Snow Child follows Jack and Mabel as their relationship slowly dissolves, in part because of their inability to have children. They soon notice a young girl hunting with a fox near their home. She appears to somehow survive the Alaskan winter on her own. They slowly begin to consider tales of the region and discover who the girl may be.

Ivey depicts the struggles of homesteading in Alaska as well as the despair of being barren. From the… show more.

This book captured my heart with its magic.

In Alaska in the 1920s, Jack and Mabel struggle to build up their homestead while grieving the loss of their child. One snowy night, they reconnect and make a child out of snow together, and the next morning, the snow child is gone but there’s a little girl running through the trees.

The girl, Faina, seems to belong to the wilderness, but Jack and Mabel come to love her as their own. This beautifully atmospheric fairy tale about love and loss brought me to tears, both sad and happy.

It’s a perfect… show more.

If you tucked sorrow and longing into a bottle half-filled with Alaskan snow, added a pinch of magic realism, and gave it a good shake, the sparkling winter scape before your eyes might charm you into believing that this reimagined fairy tale will end well. For a little while you can marvel at the snow globe swirl of wilderness where people see their desires fulfilled, but when the snow settles, you’re left with a troubling view of what remains when we struggle against our own nature. 

I first came across the Russian folk story that this novel is based on when I was a child. "The Little Daughter of the Snow" was my absolute favourite story in Arthur Ransome’s Old Peter’s Russian Stories. 

In Eowin Ivey’s book, Mabel and Jack have lost their only child. They try to make a new life among the forests and snows of Alaska. They build a little girl of snow, which melts, but a real child, Faina, emerges from the woods and they take her in as their own. They love her desperately, but their nights are haunted by darkness… show more.

This is a novel of magical realism. I like the way it blends magic with descriptions of reality as it explores the deep trauma of miscarriage and stillbirth. Like The End of Miracles, The Snow Child shows how fantasy can sometimes block out what is a painful reality. Here, a bereaved couple is learning to survive in the Alaskan wilderness. They build a child out of snow. Next day, the snow child has disappeared. But then a little girl suddenly appears, a child of the woods. How will they relate to her and learn to love this wild child?… show more.