The Way Past Winter

Product Information

As every book featuring snowfall must be by law, this book has been compared to Nothern Lights by Philip Pullman but in truth it doesn't aim to be that kind of book - rather than the modern fantasy genre of Northern Lights, it aims for a more folkloric story; a grand, perhaps allergorical, grown-up fairy-tale.

As the book description says, three sisters live with their brother until a stranger turns up. Following the events that happen that night, a journey is undertaken to save a sibling. Non posso certo dare un giudizio sulla narrazione data la mia ignoranza linguistica, ma nel complesso lo stile dell’autrice mi è parso fluido e intrigante.Mila sets out on a perilous quest to rescue Oskar, leading her through frozen landscapes. Mila will have to find a way past the eternal winter to reclaim spring again and reunite her family. An exciting, beautiful and atmospheric tale which looks at family, love, loyalty and at putting others before oneself and one which, I have to admit, kept me captivated from beginning to end. Although I am much older than the targeted age range I soon found myself completely absorbed to the extent I felt I too was travelling on Mila's sleigh, shouting "Farash" and "Stuta" to Dusha and Danya are they flew across the snowy landscape pursued by hungry, slavering wolves and huge-taloned eagles intent on preventing Mila reaching her goal. Deep in the frozen North, Mila lives with her two sisters, Sanna and Pipa and elder brother, Oskar. Being the middle child is a challenge in itself but more so when you lose your mother at childbirth and your father disappears without a word. With the endless snow and little to live off, Mila's life takes a turn for the worst when a bear of man appears at their door one night with his legs tangled in odd golden cords and stepping on the snow lighter than a hare. His presence and story will challenge and change Mila's life forever.

However, I just feel that the world building and plot isn't really explored to its full extent here. Folktales and culture are talked about briefly, more as a plot device than anything else, but never really examined or discussed in depth. I wanted to more about the Bear, how he came to be and what his true intentions might have once been before he steps down this dark path of revenge and rage. There were some parts that those reading aloud to young children might want to be aware of the boys who are captured are turned into a sort of living zombie, most of them feed the heart tree, but one is frozen in the ice so that the rescue sleigh cannot pass, the description of this boy being killed is quite graphic and though fine for a read aloud to a 16 year old I would have felt uncomfortable reading this to smaller children. The description of the boys being sacrificed for the tree is also quite horrific and might provide vivid nightmares to a younger child. Also when the reason for all this trouble is revealed we were left wondering why this person would cause all this trouble when they were someone who warned about such actions.It has been winter for five years, and Sanna, Mila and Pípa are left alone in their little house in the forest – with nothing but cabbages to eat – when their brother Oskar is lured away by the same evil force that took their father years ago and has been keeping spring from coming. Mila, the brave middle daughter, sets out on a quest to rescue Oskar and the village’s other lost boys and to find the way past winter. Clearly inspired by the Chronicles of Narnia and especially Katherine Arden’s Winternight trilogy, this middle grade novel is set in an evocative, if slightly vague, Russo-Finnish past and has more than a touch of the fairy tale about it. I enjoyed it well enough, but wouldn’t seek out anything else by the author. Perhaps the book would be satisfying for younger children (in the 7-9 range) for whom simple fantasy plotting is more apt, but then the characters are too old and jaded, the opening too sophisticatedly drawn, and the occurence of death and violence too adult, for me to imagine anyone under the age of about twelve would be up for this. Es gab eine Sache, die mich gestört hat. Der Klappentext sagt aus, dass die Hauptfigur Mila mit ihren beiden Schwestern unterwegs ist, was aber nur insoweit stimmt, als dass sie zu Beginn (eigentlich noch vor der eigentlichen Reise) zusammen unterwegs sind und dann auf der letzten Etappe nochmals. Dazwischen werden Mila und ihre kleine Schwester von einem (männlichen) jungen Zauberer begleitet. Das ist vollkommen in Ordnung, auch mochte ich den Zauberer und seine (Kräuterhexen-ähnliche) Fähigkeiten sehr, dennoch war es ein wenig enttäuschend, da es eben so klingt, als ob hier drei Mädchen bzw. zwei Mädchen und eine junge Frau unterwegs wären, die ohne männliche Hilfe auskommen. Vielleicht dient es auch einfach nur dazu, dass das Buch dadurch eher von männlichen Lesern angenommen wird. At first we thought this would be too much like Gerda's journey to rescue Kay from the snow Queen, but this storyline had so much going for it. We really enjoyed the fairy tales of the heart tree and how this tree was sacred and their well being depended upon it. We thought this book was going to be a story with an environmental message, it was disappointing that these events happened, the bear was the guardian of the forest, but because too much had been taken from the forest by man and endless winter had been given to the people, the culmination was that rather than promise the bear they would help the environment, the bear was killed. Obviously the bear in this story had become very nasty themselves, but I hoped this would have a more positive message about the bear who was after all the embodiment of the wild, the forest and the environment. This was a very enjoyable and atmospheric read aloud. An ideal story to read by an open fire, essential to read in winter and preferable to read just at the end of winter when the hope of spring is in sight.