The Snow Child
A couple in 1920s Alaska builds a snow child that seems to come alive, blending fairy tale with frontier survival.
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What you might want to know about The Snow Child
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
It is 1920 in Alaska Territory, and childless older couple Jack and Mabel are about to give up on a hard homestead in the Wolverine River valley. After their first deep snowfall, they build a small snow girl in the yard, and a real little girl with a red fox at her heels appears among the spruce.
The Snow Child was a finalist for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. It was Eowyn Ivey's debut novel; she has since written To the Bright Edge of the World and Black Woods, Blue Sky.
Yes. The Snow Child is loosely based on the Russian fairy tale Snegurochka, in which a childless couple builds a girl out of snow who comes to life. Eowyn Ivey transposes the tale to 1920s Alaska.
The Snow Child was written by Eowyn Ivey, published in 2012 by Hachette Book Group.
The Snow Child is 432 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Snow Child takes most readers 6 to 9 hours to finish.
The Snow Child is a standalone novel by Eowyn Ivey, not part of a series.
The Snow Child is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
