The Snow Child is a perfect curl-up-on-a-snow-day-with-a-mug-of-hot-chocolate kind of read. It is a fairy tale for adults, based off the classic Russian tale "Snegurochka" or "The Snow Maiden." Eowyn Ivey choose to set her story in her own homeland, in the Alaskan outback of 1920. Jack and Mabel, middle-aged homesteaders are beginning life again in the harsh Alaskan wilderness. They are miles from the nearest town, far, far away from their families in Pennsylvania. Yet here they have achieved the kind of isolation they are seeking. Mabel is looking for an escape from the endless tea parties and social gatherings that only serve to emphasize how different she is from the other women who talk only of children and families. Jack and Mabel have been unable to have children. Their one child died at birth, a tragedy from which Mabel has never fully recovered.
While Jack is out clearing land Mabel is alone all day with her thoughts and her books. The marriage has grown as cold as the Alaskan wilderness around her. She soon finds that their Alaskan adventure is not turning out to be the blissful camaraderie of backbreaking labor and long satisfying days. It is lonely, dark and depressing. She thought Alaska would satisfy her empty soul. She is disappointed. So much so that she nearly drowns herself in the nearby river.
But all of this changes when a young child flits into the couple's life. Jack and Mabel determine that she is an orphan, living alone in the wilderness, hunting and trapping to stay alive. Eventually the child warms up to the couple and comes to their home for dinner. She tells them her name is Faina, but she reveals little about her background. Though she grows to love the couple, she is never tempted by their offers of a warm bed and a hot bath. Every winter night she disappears amidst the trees. Every summer she retreats to the mountains where she can live in the snowy landscape. As the years go by Faina returns each winter with the first snowfall. Yet only Jack and Mabel see the child. Their closest neighbors, the Bensons, think them crazy for seeing this "imaginary" child of the snow. They worry that Mabel is beset by cabin fever.
However, Faina's presence in the couple's life is changing everything. Soon Mabel is living the dream that she thought would be merely an illusion. She and Jack work the fields with the neighbor boy, Garrett Benson. The almost constant summertime sun brings in sufficient crops to sustain them through the winters, along with the game that Garrett and Faina bring them. As Faina grows up, Jack and Mabel slowly realize that they have become the girl's parents. And now, they must do what all parents eventually have to do - they must let her go.
What I really enjoyed about this book was the backdrop of the Alaskan wilderness where men and women survived on what they grew, caught, and raised. I enjoyed how the seasons changed - how darkness descended with the long winter nights, accompanied by a darkness in Mabel's spirit that was lifted only by the promise of a child coming back with the snow. Perhaps what I really enjoyed was reading about life in the harsh wilderness while curled up under a blanket. I was swept across the miles and the decades while staying snuggled up in my bed with my little dog warm by my side. Isn't that why we love to read after all? We can be whisked off to live adventures vicariously, without having to go out on cold winter nights. Oh, I enjoy Alaska from the deck of a cruise ship, in the mid-summer when the temperatures are mild and the sun shines all day and night. But if I'm going to experience the real Alaska, let me do it through the pages of a novel. When it's cold outside, and warm in my house, just give me a good book and my sense of adventure will be thoroughly quenched.
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