'The Snow Child' by Eowyn Ivey

Why these stories for children always have to turn out so dreadfully is beyond me. I think if I ever tell it to my grandchildren, I will change the ending...We are allowed to do that, are we not Mabel? To invent our own endings and choose joy over sorrow? 

(excerpt from the book)

It's been awhile since I've felt the need to really review a book but then it's so rare to come across a book that is so utterly enchanting and captivates you wholly. That is what I got from reading the achingly beautiful 'The Snow Child', the debut novel by Eowyn Ivey (jealous of the author's name!)

The narrative wraps itself around this fairy tale of an old couple who create a snow child in winter and she comes alive, a creature of the snowy wilderness. The book is split between the POVs of Mabel and Jack, a couple who've escaped to Alaska to start a life of their own after not being able to have children. It's a lonely and extreme existence but as surely as the snow melts, their lives are quietly transformed by the seasons, their neighbours - and a girl of the snow who lives in the mountains behind their homestead, who they alone can see after building a snow girl one night.

I couldn't get over how much the book affected me and overwhelmed me. I knew from the first page that this was going to be a keeper; it was the way the author spun the tale with sharp, simple but ever so vivid prose. After putting it down, I realised it's pretty much near perfectly weighted between the fantastical and practical, a subtle weaving of what it takes to carve a living off this harsh landscape and  being taken in by the mystic elements, largely encompassed by the ethereal character of the snow child herself.

It's coming of age, it's all the bittersweet aspects of parenthood and endurance, the fleeting moments of beauty life gives us - everything I adore. Some of it reminded me of 'Princess Mononoke', the film by Hayao Miyazaki about a girl of a primal forest, raised by wolves - that whole untamed beauty of the natural world that is both more substantial and more insubstantial than the working, 'human' world.
I can only urge you to pick it up and read it yourself. You cannot be disappointed by any of it. This book has firmly and surely placed itself at the top of my 'must read' list.

VERDICT: 10/10

2010 is...[insert a rhyming phrase] ?

READING: 'The Other Side of You' by Salley Vickers

JUST READ: 'L.A. Candy' by Lauren Conrad

MUSIC: Death Cab for a Cutie - Meet me at the Equinox (I still hate Twilight/New Moon)

Ok, so today, what with the plummeting of beautiful snow outside, it's perfect for either a) writing, b) reading c) playing video games (nearly completed Twilight Princess but tried to beat that silly Yeti woman on the sledding game which was a continual bust, gah) or d) watching some DVD movies.

I suppose I should write about what I would like to happen in 2010 but I don't want to indulge in anticipating much of anything because plans made are seldom plans lived. They usually divert off course in the same way an astronomer has to be precise to the degree otherwise even a minute discrepancy may be the difference between now or a million light years away. (I don't know - is that a good analogy?)

There are some things I am aiming to do:

1) start to post some of my work via Twitter (either my long slog of novel - which is finally picking up and looks to be a finished project on the not-so-far horizon, or the beginnings of a screenplay, which would be best posted as a treatment first perhaps?)

2) start a video blog - something I have wanted to do for some time but my fear of being in front of the camera prevents me at times - it seems to be a fashionable thing to be doing right now.

3) if video-ing still daunts me then perhaps a blog where I actually comment on things, like current affairs or random stuff that interests me - OR (and this is fashionable too) where I can write reviews of movies I have made or books I have read.

4) GET A JOB! (a REAL one, hahaha)

So far there's no reason to think 2010 will disappoint, especially after I read an article from Script Magazine talking about writer's block and how if you get yourself to write the worst possible scene, at least it's out of your system and then the only direction you can go in is 'improvement', i.e. if you're at the bottom, the only way is up, right?