Introduction

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.

Editorial Review

Amazon Best Books of the Month, February 2012: In her haunting, evocative debut Eowyn Ivey stakes her claim on a Russian fairy tale, daring the reader--and the characters--to be lulled into thinking they know the ending. But, as with the Alaskan wilderness, thereâ??s far more here than meets the eye. On the surface itâ??s the story of a childless pioneer couple running from their East Coast lives and struggling to survive in the harshest of climates while also attempting to reconnect with each other; but itâ??s also the story of the spring of hope that bubbles out of new friendships, of the slow realization of love for a surrogate child, of the ties between man and nature. Ivey spares no words in describing the beauty and the danger of her native Alaska, bringing the sheer magnitude of the wilderness alive on every page. With the transparent prose of a fairy tale and descriptions to put nature writing to shame, The Snow Child immerses readers in a 1920s Alaska that will draw them back again and again. -- Malissa Kent

Excerpt

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Discussion Questions

Questions:



When Mabel first arrives in Alaska, it seems a bleak and lonely place to her. Does her sense of the land change over time? If so, how?
Why are Jack and Mabel emotionally estranged from each other in the beginning of the novel, and how are they able to overcome that?
How do Esther Benson and Mabel differ in temperament, and how does their friendship change Mabel?
The first time Garrett sees Faina in person is when he spies her killing a wild swan. What is the significance of this scene?
In what ways does Faina represent the Alaska wilderness?
Jack and Mabel?s only child is stillborn. How does this affect Mabel?s relationship with Faina?
When Jack is injured, Esther and Garret move to their farm to help them. How does this alter Jack and Mabel?s relationship?
Much of Jack and Mabel?s sorrow comes from not having a family of their own, and yet they leave their extended family behind to move to Alaska. By the end of the novel, has their sense of family changed? Who would they consider a part of their family?
Death comes in many forms in The Snow Child, including Mabel giving birth to a stillborn infant, Jack shooting a moose, Faina slaying a swan, the fox killing a wild bird, Jack and Mabel slaughtering their chickens, and Garrett shooting the fox. Why is this one of the themes of the book and what is the author trying to say about death?
What do you believe happened to Faina in the end? Who was she?

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Weblinks

»	Publisher's Book Info
»	Author Eowyn Ivey's web site
»	Contact the Author
»	Sweepstakes for Book clubs on Little,Brown's Facebook Page

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