Tuesday, January 3, 2017

The Story of the Snow Children by Sibylle von Olfers


(I really wanted my amaryllis in the picture. It didn't work out quite as well as it could have, but my amaryllis is very red and sunshiney!)

This is an incredibly adorable, charming, and sweet book that you will like much better than your children will. It really is. I bought this a few years ago as a treat for my kids. I think we have read it once. It is so cute!! But... the story is not as delightful and entertaining as the pictures are. It is markedly a product of it's time, 1905. Poppy, the heroine really does nothing, but go along with what others tell her to do until she gets too tired and cries. She is then carried home. It is realistic in a way that children are always carted around and told what to do, but... we like our heroines to have a little pep. 

But it is so sweet.  


See how cute it is? Adorable!


Poppy is left all alone as her mother just stepped out for something. She sees snowflakes dancing and playing in the garden, calling for her to come out and see them. 


The snowflakes call for Swirly-wind to bring her sledge to carry Poppy to the Snow Queen's castle. 


The snow queen and the royal princess. While I think those little snowflake babies are adorable, the sameness of them all is vaguely disturbing to me. Snowflakes are delightfully different, not clones.


They have a lovely meal with snowman waiters. Which are vaguely disturbing to me as well. Not sure why. Something about the humanness of their non-humanness looks like they are men in puffy white suits. Who may have a sinister reason for hiding inside snowmen suits...

I am weird. Pay no attention to me. 


Finally, Poppy has had too much. 
Her ears and eyes had had enough and her body ached. Now all she wanted was to go home.

Over-stimulation. That will do it every time. 


The Snow Queen's snowman drives Poppy home where her mother is waiting to welcome her home and hear about her adventure.

Admittedly, I am not a fantasy fanatic, but I typically love sweet fairy stories like this. However, this one just doesn't do it for me or my kids. I like the pictures better than the story. 

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