The Snow Queen

Darleen R. Golke is a high-school teacher-librarian in Winnipeg,
Manitoba.

Gerda’s childhood companion, Kai, wounds her deeply when he dismisses
her poetry as “pretty verses” and insists that mathematics and
science are what really matter. When the elegant, beautiful Baroness
Aurore invites Kai to Uppsala, Sweden, to pursue his studies, he
enthusiastically accepts. After months pass with no word from Kai,
however, Gerda decides to find him and embarks on a perilous journey.

During her travels, Gerda is ambushed by a young woman named Ritva, the
shaman-apparent of the Reindeer Folk, and becomes her “splendid
pet.” Eventually, Ritva bullies Gerda into confiding her quest, and
together with Ritva’s old reindeer, Ba, they set out on the dangerous
trek envisioned by Ritva in a dream sequence. Along the way, they learn
that the Baroness is a sorceress known variously as “The Terrible
Enchantress,” “The Drowner of Heroes and Devourer of Souls,” and
“The Snow Queen.”

Gifts from the “old woman who writes on codfish” and the “old
woman who binds the winds” help the young women find the Snow Queen.
As they rescue Kai from her clutches, they stand “fast together,”
pitting “their skills against the Snow Queen’s magic.” Their
partnership grows into an enduring friendship as they come of age and
develop self-awareness.

Eileen Kernaghan’s fantasy, which is based on a Hans Christian
Andersen fairy tale, combines the magical world of Saami shamanism and
19th-century Scandinavian society. Excerpts from Kalevala songs are
interspersed throughout the text.

Gerda, a Danish gentlewoman, and Ritva, a robber-baron/shaman
offspring, are strong yet disparate characters (the hardships
experienced by Ritva’s people are contrasted with the comfort of
Gerda’s environment) whose inherent goodness defeats the Snow
Queen’s evil. Kai, the hapless victim, hardly seems worth rescuing,
while the Snow Queen is satisfyingly wicked and deserving of her fate.
Although as in all good fairy tales good triumphs over evil, Kernaghan
suggests that all may not necessarily “live happily ever after.”
Recommended.