The Snow Girl

This story almost sinks before finally taking off in some style. It starts in a valley somewhere very cold and possibly Russian, where everyone is consistently sweet to each other. Young Tasha lives with her parents in grandpa’s farm all in a perpetual state of mutual adoration. But while she loves the countryside and its abundant natural life she has no self-confidence after a near-drowning accident in her former home miles south. Excited by her first sight of snow she creates a model girl outside who disappears by the morning leaving only a scarf behind. But Tasha tracks her down next night, now a living person speaking a language she can’t understand. Together they go on to have wonderful times playing with wild animals and exploring the forest. Tasha keeps these nocturnal secrets to herself.

But eventually questions start to form. Is the snow girl also something of a Snow Queen, lovely to look at but with a dangerous agenda for her followers? Is her magical company stopping Tasha from getting round to making human friends in the day?  Tension mounts when it finally becomes apparent that her love affair with the maiden also has the effect of prolonging an icy winter increasingly dangerous for grandpa and his bad chest. She now has to choose between renouncing her only real friend or else living in perpetual ice and snow.

Sophie Anderson writes lyrically about the forest world Tasha gets to know so well, drawing on her own memories of the Slavic tales told to her as a girl by her Prussian grandmother. Her story is accompanied throughout by attractive two-colour interior illustrations from Melissa Castrillón. Dreamy, gentle young readers could well really love this story; the more tough-minded may find some of it rather heavy-going.