The Snow Child, Eowyn Ivey
The Snow Child, Eowyn Ivey
List: $27.99 | Sale: $19.59
Club: $13.99

The Snow Child
A Novel

Author: Eowyn Ivey

Narrator: Therese Plummer

Unabridged: 10 hr 57 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 07/31/2018


Synopsis

In this magical debut, a couple's lives are changed forever by the arrival of a little girl, wild and secretive, on their snowy doorstep.

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.

About Eowyn Ivey

Eowyn Ivey is the author of The Snow Child, an international bestseller published in thirty countries, a Richard and Judy Bookclub pick, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and winner of a British Book Award. Her second novel, To the Bright Edge of the World, was longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award, shortlisted for the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Award, and was a Washington Post Notable Book. She is a former bookseller and lives in Palmer, Alaska.


Reviews

Goodreads review by karen on April 17, 2019

when i was about one hundred pages from the end of this book, i tugged on greg's sleeve at work, and said, "is this gonna end sad??" and he refused to answer. i think that was a good impulse. because i almost don't wanna review this. this book was such a beautiful journey, and taking place as it does o......more

Goodreads review by Emily May on May 22, 2012

I put off reading The Snow Child because it wasn't something I would have chosen for myself without the extremely positive reviews of other goodreads members. If it is not obvious to you from the description alone, then this book is not mostly plot-driven. It's charm is upheld by the characters,......more

Goodreads review by jessica on March 04, 2022

quiet. understated. humble. and oh, so lovely. this tender retelling of ‘the snow maiden’ really shines in its simplicity. and although this isnt a romance novel, the story just radiates love. jack and mabel are such a wonderful couple and the love they grow to have for faina is so heartfelt. this s......more

Goodreads review by Carolyn Marie on February 18, 2025

I will think about this book for the rest of my life, and here’s why… Eowyn Ivey’s writing style swept me off my feet and carried me to the snowy hills of 1920s Alaska. Each word felt as if it had been chosen with the greatest care and effortless precision, as if by magic. The characters, in the begi......more

Goodreads review by Norma ~ The Sisters on December 20, 2024

A magical & classic fairytale story for adults!  (bringing back memories of our childhood) Sister Read Review by Norma & Brenda THE SNOW CHILD by EOWYN IVEY is a wonderful, heartwarming, sad, and beautifully told bewitching tale based on a Russian fairytale titled "Snegurochka", The Snow Maiden a girl......more


Quotes

"If Willa Cather and Gabriel Garcia Marquez had collaborated on a book, THE SNOW CHILD would be it. It is a remarkable accomplishment -- a combination of the most delicate, ethereal, fairytale magic and the harsh realities of homesteading in the Alaskan wilderness in 1918. Stunningly conceived, beautifully told, this story has the intricate fragility of a snowflake and the natural honesty of the dirt beneath your feet, the unnerving reality of a dream in the night. It fascinates, it touches the heart. It gallops along even as it takes time to pause at the wonder of life and the world in which we live. And it will stir you up and stay with you for a long, long time."—Robert Goolrick, New York Times bestselling author of A Reliable Wife

"THE SNOW CHILD is enchanting from beginning to end. Ivey breathes life into an old tale and makes it as fresh as the season' s first snow. Simply lovely."—Keith Donohue, New York Times bestselling author of The Stolen Child

"A transporting tale . . . an amazing achievement."—Sena Jeter Naslund, New York Times bestselling author of Ahab's Wife

"THE SNOW CHILD is a vivid story of isolation and hope on the Alaska frontier, a narrative of struggle with the elements and the elemental conflict between one's inner demons and dreams, and the miracle of human connection and community in a spectacular, dangerous world. You will not soon forget this story of learning to accept the gifts that fate and love can bring."Robert Morgan, author of Gap Creek

"Eowyn Ivey's exquisite debut transports the reader away to a world almost out of time, into a fairytale destined to both chill and delight. Her portrayal of an untamed Alaska is so detailed you can feel the snowflakes on your own eyelashes, even as her characters' desperate quest for, and ultimate redemption by, love will warm your heart."—Melanie Benjamin, author of Alice I Have Been

"Magical, yes, but THE SNOW CHILD is also satisfyingly realistic in its depiction of 1920s homestead-era Alaska and the people who settled there, including an older couple bound together by resilient love. Eowyn Ivey's poignant debut novel grabbed me from the very first pages and made me wish we had more genre-defying Alaska novels like this one. Inspired by a fairy tale, it nonetheless contains more depth and truth than so many books set in this land of extremes."—Andromeda Romano-Lax, author of The Spanish Bow

"This book is real magic, shot through from cover to cover with the cold, wild beauty of the Alaskan frontier. Eowyn Ivey writes with all the captivating delicacy of the snowfalls she so beautifully describes."—Ali Shaw, author of The Girl with Glass Feet

"Long winters come alive in Ivey's novel about 1920s-era homesteaders in Alaska."—Tina Jordan, New York Times