The Snow Child -- Take 2

I wasn't sure this book was going to be for me.  It fit the January category that I needed for my 2022 Reading Challenge, and I happened to have it, so I went ahead and gave it a go.  I was pleasantly surprised by it.  The writing was simple, but in a way that fit perfectly with the story.  

The main characters, Jack and Mabel, leave their families on the east coast and move to Alaska after a traumatic miscarriage that neither of them had fully processed.  It's the 1920s.  The two of them get a little piece of land and start their lives over, building their own home and trying to make a go of farming.  The life is not quite as simple as they hoped, as they remain haunted by the child they left behind.

One night, during an early-season snowfall, they build a snow child.  They give her a face and dress her up in a scarf and mittens.  In the morning, the snow child is gone, but a set of small footprints lead away from the location and into the woods.  They see a girl, wearing their scarf and mittens, out in the woods.

Over the years, they get to know the girl.  She comes around every winter, but disappears into the colder high country for the summer months.  There remains something mystical, and slightly fantastical about her.  Mabel is reminded of an old Russian fairy tale about a snow child that her father used to read her when she was young.  The snow child -- like the girl Faina -- appears every winter and disappears every summer.  But the snow child's story always ends with her disappearance.  Having come to love Faina as the child they never had, Mabel and Jack work to ensure Faina does not meet the same fate. 

If you know me, you are probably as perplexed as I am about why I liked this.  As I mentioned, first, the writing style perfectly suited the content.  These are simple frontier people, educated but not complicated.  The prose is as well.  It fits the story, the way good architecture fits in its landscape.  Second, though I've never been to Alaska, I find the idea of it fascinating generally.  Third -- and this is why it's important to read some books at the appropriate time -- it was cold here.  Sometimes you need to read a cold book when it's blazing hot outside, but sometimes those cold, whistling winds and long, dark nights really help set the mood.  That was the case for this read.