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Alaska, 1920: a brutal place to homestead, and especially tough for recent arrivals Jack and Mabel. Childless, they are drifting apart--he breaking under the weight of the work of the farm; she crumbling from loneliness and despair. In a moment of levity during the season's first snowfall, they build a child out of snow. The next morning the snow child is gone--but they glimpse a young, blonde-haired girl running through the trees. This little girl, who calls herself Faina, seems to be a child of the woods. She hunts with a red fox at her side, skims lightly across the snow, and somehow survives alone in the Alaskan wilderness. As Jack and Mabel struggle to understand this child who could have stepped from the pages of a fairy tale, they come to love her as their own daughter. But in this beautiful, violent place things are rarely as they appear, and what they eventually learn about Faina will transform all of them.--From Amazon.… (more)
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This is a heartwarming story, it is a heartbreaking story. There is pure joy, and there are pages and pages of agony. I am nearly breathless with it. At first, I just wasn't sure what to make of it. My final thought is that this is a story that needs to be read for all of the things I have mentioned. I am just not sure I could do it again.
This story, loosely based on a Russian fairytale, is about hope and survival. How a little girl can bring this couple happiness and possibly something deeper and darker. The author, an Alaskan native, captures the tone and the setting of this wild isolated place, with perfect detail. I think the book could have used additional editing but I was drawn to these characters, their tenacity and resilience, and ended up enjoying it very much.
Then one night, during the first snow of the winter and in a moment of giddy high spirits, Jack and Mabel build a little girl out of snow outside their cabin. The next morning, to their dismay, the girl has been knocked down and Mabel's scarf and mittens are gone. Soon afterwards they catch a glimpse of a small girl flitting through the forest with a red fox in tow, and they are mystified. Is this the girl they created together, come alive through their shared longing for a child? Or is she just a little girl in need, trying to survive in the wilderness by herself? And so Faina comes into their lives, changing their world forever...
It is an absolutely beautiful book, and well on track to be one of my favourites of this year. It's not a fast-paced story, but one that I wanted to savour and enjoy, page by page. Ivey's descriptions made me feel like I was there in the cabin and walking through the woods with her characters; I could feel the chill in the air, smell the spruce trees and taste the snow on the breeze. I think one of the things I liked best about the book was its tenderness and humanity. There were moments that made me smile, moments that made me sigh, and moments that made me well up. Every character pulled me in so that I was utterly invested in their happiness and wellbeing, and every conversation and interaction is rooted in such deep emotional awareness that it felt pitch-perfect and utterly real.
Alongside this, of course, was the magical presence of Faina herself. She is such an ethereally beautiful character, yet also strong and brutally capable, so that the reader, like Jack and Mabel, never knows quite what to make of her. I like that this magical element - based on a Russian fairytale - is written with a very gentle touch, so that it never feels implausible and the reader is left to come to their own conclusions. Highly recommended to readers who like their books to be firmly rooted in human relationships, who appreciate being able to a get a real sense of place as they read, and who enjoy authors like Alice Hoffman and Sarah Addison Allen who interweave their novels with a thread of magic and wonder. Read it!
Jack and Mabel have come to settle in Alaska to escape the pain of losing their child during birth, and to create a fresh start in life. It is not going well, though. Mabel is contemplating suicide and Jack is worried about how they will survive the harsh winter. Their marriage is fracturing and the distance is growing between them, but in a moment of happiness during the first snow, they build a snow girl in their yard. The next day the snow girl is gone, and over the weeks they see glimpses of a girl who seems like she was carved out of the wilderness slipping in between the trees, a wild red fox by her side as if it were a pet. Is she real? Or are their grief stricken minds creating her from their imagination?
Alaska is such a perfect setting for this book, and I am jealous of the Ivey's ability to paint the frigid, icy and eerie location so lushly onto the pages. Ivey is gifted with a writing style that is descriptive without being overbearing, and it shows in every aspect of the story. From the setting to the plot to the characters, she crafted them excellently.
Characters are my favorite aspect to analyze in a story, as they are often what makes or break a novel. In The Snow Child, not a single one of them is obligatory or thrown together haphazardly. The main characters are particularly shining. Although I am a teenager who has never been a mother or longed desperately to have children, I felt Mabel's pain about her loss very keenly, and I sympathized with her loneliness and isolation. On the other hand I felt for Jack, who was suffering from the death of his child in his own quiet and distant way. I also loved the character of Faina, the snow girl - her innocence and wisdom, plus her unearthly knowledge of the wilderness of Alaska, made her unique from any other character I've read.
This is a story I wouldn't mind reading again later on, at a slower pace, just so I can absorb the language deeper into my skull. The characters, plot, pacing, and writing were eloquent and beautiful, and it conjures up the same feelings that I felt when I first read the fairy tale when I was a girl. I love fairy tale retellings and this one definitely joins the hallowed ranks of some of the best I've ever read.
Jack and Mabel have moved to Alaska to begin a new life. The climate and the terrain are mercilessly unforgiving and it is a lonely existence. That suits them just fine. It is the solitude they crave….the not having watch and
The story begins on the night of the first snow of the winter at their log cabin. On a sudden whim, the couple decide to build a snow girl out in the yard which they decorate with mittens and a scarf….using berry juice to fashion her mouth and yellow straw to form her hair. When they awaken the next morning, the snow girl has completely disappeared, along with the mittens and scarf. It isn’t long before the two of them start to see a small figure darting through the trees at the border of their land. Can it be that the snow girl has come to life?
This story is based on an ancient Russian fairy tale and is beautifully written. The author grew up and still resides in Alaska and her love of the raw beauty of this part of the world is very evident. Each chapter evokes a wonderful atmosphere, leading the reader to be totally absorbed in the story. All the characters come to vivid life and they almost feel like lifelong friends. I particularly felt drawn to Mabel and their neighbours George and Esther who become great support to the couple.
The tale is a sad one, but somehow uplifting as it reaches it’s conclusion. One reviewer has said that it broke her heart……and I certainly agree with that. I highly recommend this debut novel and can’t wait for the next one from this talented author.
This book was made available to me, prior to publication, for and honest review.
Mabel sees Alaska as a way to escape from all of the pity she sees in the eyes of family and friends. She just wants life to be her and Jack. Jack knows they can't make it in such a harsh land alone. He is too old to be breaking the land. He needs help. Mabel feels at fault for her inability to give him children but Jack does not blame her...
Just at the right time a boisterous family comes into their life to help them manage their homestead. A family with three strong children. A woman who starts to bring Mabel out of her shell. Also at this time their appears a mystical child. A child that appears the day after Jack and Mabel make a small snowgirl. Is she real or is she a manifestation of all of Mabel's hopes and dreams?
I cannot tell you the joy I found in this book. Despite the overall sadness of the main theme there was much to celebrate within. Faina, the snow child was a delight! In writing her dialog no quotation marks are used so you "hear" it in your head and wonder if she is real or not. She came to me as a whisper on a breeze. I felt as if I had been dropped into a snowglobe and was living in some kind of mystical snow world. The writing almost surrounded me and then fell like the little pieces of snow. This book is special; I cursed my reading schedule because I could not immediately start it over again. I know that I will find more when I do get the opportunity to drop again into Faina's magical world.
It's by no means all magic and light. There is much depth to be found in the tale. Sadness and loss. The bonds of friendship and the power of love and what those two can do to keep a person from completely falling apart. I am not usually one for books with messages but this book stole my heart. It's a keeper and now sits on my top reads shelf. It made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me think. I love a book that makes me do all of that and more.
Then Faina, a beautiful, feral child, slowly enters their lives. Mabel believes that she is a snow child that her and Jack created one night out of snow. The story happens in the winter and during snowfall.
Jack and Mabel are changed by Faina's presence. But no one else has ever seen Faina or heard of a girl being able to survive the harsh Alaskan winters on her own. So who is she? I don't want to write more for fear of ruining this beautiful story.
What makes this novel most remarkable is the quality of its writing. The descriptions are vibrant. The characters want love and happiness. Life on the farm seems real, with the dialogue kept to a minimum. What I liked the best was that even though the book seemed like a fairytale, I believed every bit of it.
This very imaginative story takes its theme from a children's Russian fable of the same name, written by Freya Littledale and Barbara Lavallee. The characters are clearly defined as trailblazers, fighting the harsh winters and wilderness of Alaska in the
Childless and bereft, Mabel and Jack, a loving couple tired of being ridiculed and stared at, as if childlessness was an affliction, decide to move away from family and friends to Alaska, where they can begin their lives again, alone, living off the untamed land. It is a tender tale of deep love and loss, told beautifully with reality and fantasy mixing together with an easy grace.
Struggling to survive a task far greater than they imagined, they grow a little apart, become depressed and forlorn, giving up hope of succeeding in their fight to overcome the climate and the barrenness. Fearing that they will not be able to thrive on the farm they are trying to create, afraid they will have to return to civilization in shame, they drop their guard when the first snowstorm arrives, and like children, they build a snow child dressed in Mabel's mittens and gloves. They carve features colored with berries, provide branches for arms, they dance around with glee, rekindle their love for each other and renew their hope and efforts to survive.
When a strange child suddenly appears soon afterwards, wearing the mittens and gloves of the collapsed snow child, Mabel and Jack are astonished. For many years, she arrives with the first snowfall and leaves in the spring when the weather warms, witnessed by no one else, not even neighbors George and Esther, who often visit and have helped them to survive the toughest moments of their homesteading. Faina brings joy and warmth back into their lives, albeit briefly. That joy is always followed by a season of sadness when she leaves once again.
Faina, changes and influences their lives and they influence hers. She seems magical, like a spirit, and often strange events occur when she is around. Is she real or a figment of their imagination, resulting from 'cabin fever'? Will she always return?
This is a very tender magical novel about dreams and nightmares, belief and disbelief, life and death, love and loss. Love has the power to deal with all of these scenarios, or does it perhaps create them? How the issue of the snow child resolves itself, is the crux of this lovely little fairy tale. Highly recommended.
Written by a native of Alaska, the descriptions of the mountains, fields, rivers, and woods wrap securely around the reader in a blanket of reality. And
This story of a grieving older couple, childless and trying to start a farming life in Alaska, meanders into unexpected paths of discovery. The slow journey through their emotional despair is wrought with struggles of the heart, mindful revelations, and encounters with a wilderness child 'born' of snow.
The pace of the plot seems to drag in spots, but this is compensated by the incredible descriptions of nature and wildlife. Still thinking about the ending... somewhat strange. But then the whole book was other-worldly.
As the first snow falls, they find an unexpected
Many reviewers are calling this book ‘magical’, and it does have that feel to it. The landscape and environment is vivid and harsh, and yet the snowy atmosphere adds it’s own magical touch. Eowyn never quite explains the child either, it’s left to the reader to decide if she has a real background, or a magical beginning.
This is a tale partly about Faina, the Snow Child of the story, but is also about Jack and Mabel, their new life, and their relationships. It’s about survival, grief, friendship and love, and it’s a simple but moving tale. Highly recommended.
Jack and Mabel are an "older" couple homesteading in Alaska in the 1920s. They have a good life and a good marriage tarnished only by their ongoing sadness at being
Neighbors Esther and George and their three sons (especially Garrett, the youngest) are delightful characters in Ivey's novel; they befriend Jack and Mabel and are characters you'd like to meet.
Ivey's descriptions of the Alaska wilderness, especially in snow, are rich and tactile. The novel lulls its reader into believing she knows where the story is going but this one brings unexpected twists and turns, never really creating suspense but rather interest and engagement. I took off a half-star for the ending but that's probably because I've never been much of one for fairy tales.
In the glint of freshly fallen snow Jack and Mabel build a snow girl. Inspired by raw emotion and unmet dreams, snow is carved and adorned by the couple. Later, the snow girl lying crumbled, the gloves and scarf are to be seen on a girl running into the woods. Tracks lead from the remains of the couple's creation and the question floats as if caught in a flurry, who is this girl?
Inhabiting the realm between folklore and realism, Ivey's work caresses its readers with the chill and severity of Alaskan snow, the sharp edges of piercing grief, and the warm enticement of myth and mystery. The harshness of homesteading the wilds of Alaska and the interplay between the fragility and strength possessed by Ivey's characters are well developed. The story is simply built and enjoyable.
Though there were a couple parts that fell to a meander throughout, I was caught by Ivey's use of the visual. The rural and wild Alaskan frontier is as much a main character of The Snow Child as Faina, Jack, Mabel, or Esther. Just as their relationships build and bloom with each other, so do we see each character's relationship with the frontier develop and it was captivating to see the differences and similarities. I came away from the book pleased with both the story as well as Ivey's respect for the nature of Alaska's wilds and the struggle and appreciation experienced by those that settled there.
“Like many fairy tales, there are many different ways it is told, but it always begins the same. An old man and an old woman live happily in their small cottage in the forest, but for one sorrow: they have no children of their own. One winter’s day, they build a girl of
The quote above is about the Russian fairy tale that is the basis of Eowyn Ivey’s debut novel, The Snow Child. Set in Wolverine River, Alaska, shortly after WWI, a middle-aged couple is struggling to get their footing as homesteaders. Mable and Jack fled Pennsylvania in an attempt to escape their enduring sorrow over the stillbirth of their only child ten years prior. The couple is loving, but lonely on their own, their fondest wish having never been fulfilled.
One night, in an unusual fit of whimsy, the two fashion a snow girl, detailed down to the berry juice that stains her lips and a hand-knit scarf and mittens. The next morning, the sculpture is reduced to a lump of snow; the scarf and mittens are nowhere to be found. But over the next several days, both Jack and Mable spot a small, blonde girl at the edge of the woods near their home, on her own in the harsh environment. They see footprints in the snow. No one seems to know of a child in the area. No one seems to believe in a child in the area. But eventually Jack and Mable forge a relationship with this almost feral and quite possibly otherworldly child.
And that is the beginning of an exquisite and truly magical tale. Gently, gently the tale expands. An Alaskan herself, Ivey brings her landscape to life, in all its wintery beauty. Her use of language is likewise beautiful. Her characters are understated. Their lives are hard. But she takes the time to allow them to develop and show all of their subtle colors. New friends bring new life to this damaged couple, and do much to lighten and enliven the tale. The story unfolds in unexpected directions, and I kept changing my mind about whether I was reading realism or magical realism. I never knew how the tale would end. There was so much potential for both joy and tragedy. Ultimately, The Snow Child was enchanting from start to finish.
The Snow Child is an
I cared about the characters, but I especially loved the depictions of the Alaskan wilderness throughout the seasons. The novel also pays homage to freedom and individuality, while at the same time celebrating the bonds of friendship, love and trust that tie together friends and family. One theme that resonates with me is the importance of being a part of something larger than oneself - a family, a farm, a close friendship, nature.
Mabel and Jack are middle-aged, childless homesteaders, having transplanted from warmer climes for a new start. Mabel's one pregnancy was still-born, and there is a sadness in both of them that affects their ability to thrive
Gently-wrought and entrancing, this Pulitzer finalist was a joy to read. Earlier I read Ivey's second novel, "To The Bright Edge of the World", and she has become one of those authors I'll be sure to watch for in the future.
All that said, after inhabiting this book for a while, the sights, sounds and smells of Alaska seem to be with me like a memory, although I've never been there. That's an amazing accomplishment for any writer, and those who read novels primarily to be carried away to new places will want to read this.
The book gives a pretty good portrait of the hard life of homesteaders . . . but then it takes off towards fantasy. One night, following a playful snowball fight, Jack and Mabel make a little girl out of snow. Mabel is touched by the beautiful face that Jack has carved, and she provides mittens and a scarf to finish their snow child. When Jack rises the next morning, the mittens and scarf are gone, and he thinks he sees a little girl with a red fox at the edge of the tree.
At this point, Ivey's novel becomes a riff on a Russian folk tale, one that Mabel remembers hearing as a child, and the reader--like Mabel and Jack--can't quite determine if the girl is a real child or some kind of mystical being. Signs point in both directions.
I started out liking the homesteading story, but after awhile, Mabel got on my nerves. I can't quite explain why, except that she seemed at times to be naïve, bordering on stupid. And several of the other characters--like Esther, the resourceful, hearty, trousers-wearing Mrs. Benson--seemed like stereotypes to me. Since I am not fond of fantasy, I found that element more irritating than charming.
I think I just convinced myself to change my rating from 3 stars to 2.5.