This is not just lovely to read, but it’s also beautiful to look out. A handsome cover with lovely artwork and gilded letters, chapter headings decorated botanically, and both small and full page occasional illustrations. Plus it’s a retelling of a fairy tale (one I can never remember, so I made no comparisons at all while reading it.) It’s so lovely I bought it for Christmas last year for Tabby and me. And then we never read it. And it sat there accusingly. Until I said we must read it before this Christmas! And then Tabby got sick and I said “a-ha! What could be better than lying on the couch under the quilts while I read this aloud?” and indeed, it was a wonderful way to pass some time. We enjoyed this so, so much. If I was 10 or 11 I’d probably reread it many times, especially enjoying the physical quality of the book–exactly as I read my Tasha Tudor illustrated Frances Hodgson Burnett books.
Snow and Rose are beautiful sisters who have to move to a cottage in the woods with their mother after their father disappears. They aren’t afraid of the woods, but there’s definitely something there and it may or may not have to do with what happened to their father. The girls make friends with a boy who, improbably, lives underground! There’s some magical elements, some excitement, some weirdness, and a big bear.
We both loved this.
