Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
How to describe this book? It’s haunting and lyrical. It’s heartbreaking and uplifting. It’s stark and lush. It is fantastic and realistic. It is all these things and more.
A childless couple moves from their successful farm in Pennsylvania to start over homesteading in Alaska. The solitude is enormous and their unhappiness grows. Until one day when it begins to snow and the couple creates a little girl out of snow. The next day the snow child and the scarf and mittens she was wearing are gone. But there is a flesh and blood child wearing the clothing running through the woods; a fey child who flourishes in the snow and vanishes in the warmth. Is she a figment of the imagination? A creature of legend? A child who needs a family to love her?
I must admit it’s been a few days since I finished this book and I’m still deciding how it ended since it can be read in a few different ways. Because of this I’ve decided to choose it for the April Popular Fiction Book Discussion Group which will be meeting at the Bridgewater Library on Tuesday, April 17th at 7pm.
