Reviews in the Wild: The Snow Child

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The Snow Child
by Eowyn Ivey
Reagan Arthur Books (February 1, 2012)
389 pages (hardcover)

Because fairy tales are “full of unsettling transformations and traumatic bargains,” says Ron Charles, fiction editor at The Washington Post, writing fairy tales is “a difficult act of wizardry: One wrong spell and you’re cast out of the kingdom of literary fiction or, worse, left suspended between YA and adult fiction, too hot for one group, too cold for the other.”

Eowyn Ivey must be quite the wizard, then, because in a review published yesterday Charles calls The Snow Child a “lovely first novel.” A reimagining of a Russian fairy tale, the book tells the story of a childless Pennsylvanian couple who flee to the Alaskan frontier in 1920. There they discover? create? a mysterious and delightful girl who rekindles both joy and sorrow. Though Charles has some criticisms, he calls the writing “magic.” The book officially releases today.

First novels have long held a tender place in my reading list, and I’m adding this one now. Read Ron Charles’ review of The Snow Child and let us know if you’ll be putting it on your TBR list too.