Cbr18bingo craft (a husband and wife craft a child out of snow)
The Snow Child is an engaging novel that combines life on a harsh frontier with a fanciful, magical fairy tale. Both can be quite grim and yet it is not a foregone conclusion that harsh reality will ever prevail. Withstanding the storms requires personal strength and the willingness to reach out to others and form bonds. A certain amount of risk is involved, which can be both terrifying and exhilarating.
Eowyn Ivey sets this novel in her native Alaska in 1920, when it is a sparsely settled US territory. Main characters Alice and Jack, a married couple in their 40s, have been homesteading for nearly 10 years. They left a fairly comfortable and predictable life on a Pennsylvania farm for the wild unknown. While this sounds bold and exciting, their reason for doing so is actually quite sad. Alice and Jack are childless, having buried a stillborn child a decade ago. Alice was depressed and could not bear to be surrounded by family who had no trouble conceiving and growing large happy families. In order to escape the reminders of her failure, she tells Jack they should head to this exciting new frontier. Yet, a decade has passed when the story begins, and Alice and Jack are struggling. Farming in Alaska is an extremely difficult endeavor, unlike farming in Pennsylvania, and the long dark winters take a toll on one’s mental health. Jack says they have probably one more season to make this work or they will have to quit and return to Pennsylvania. Alice, meanwhile, is having suicidal thoughts. She is not really involved in the farming; she is the daughter of an academic and grew up in a house full of the arts. When Jack suggests that they get to know their neighbors down the way — the Bensons — Alice is uninterested. Everything starts to change, however, on the night of the first snow. It comes and covers the ground quickly, and on a whim, Alice and Jack build a small snowman. They give it hay for hair, mittens and a scarf, and Jack carves it an exquisite face, using berry juice to dye the lips red. The next day, the snowman is gone, as are the hay, scarf and gloves. Not long after, both Alice and Jack start to have sightings of a beautiful little girl with white blond hair, a blue coat, and red gloves and scarf. A little fox follows her. Neither Alice nor Jack is able to get close to her, and she seems unnaturally nimble in the snow. It reminds Alice of a Russian fairy tale that her father told her as a child about the little snow maiden. Is this the snow maiden? Is it a real girl? Or are Alice and Jack going crazy?
The presence of this child/appartition seems to invigorate Alice and Jack. In order to learn more about her, they engage more with their environment and with their neighbors, the Bensons. They build meaningful friendships with the parents, George and Esther, and with their sons, but especially the youngest son Garrett. The Alaskan frontier remains harsh, but with these bonds forged, Alice and Jack are much better able to withstand the storms and are able to move forward and experience success. They are also better able to process their grief over losing a child and remaining childless.
The story of who the little “snow” girl is unfolds gradually, and Ivey’s way of linking this story to the Russian fairy tale is quite ingenious. If you aren’t familiar with the Russian tale of the snow maiden, you will learn it alongside the other characters in this novel. And you will share Alice and Jack’s worry about what is going to happen to this child left alone in the woods.
Ultimately, The Snow Child is a story that emphasizes our need for community. Whether you live on a frontier or in a huge city, feeling separate and alone can make survival difficult. We all need to find our people so we can help each other through the storms of life.
