Winter's Child: A Retelling of "The Snow Queen"

Winter’s Child by Cameron Dokey is a retelling of the fairy tale, The Snow Queen. In this imaginative story, the Snow Queen is reinvented as a hapless baby that due to her own mother’s neglect becomes the Winter’s Child and at sixteen must leave home to travel and mend hearts that have the misfortune of having a sliver of her mother’s ice mirror embedded in their heart. The final way to break the curse will be for her to find a true heart that chooses her unconditionally.

Kai and Grace have grown up together but at sixteen Kai asks Grace to marry him. She sees marriage as a type of prison and turns him down. When the Snow Child comes to Kai he goes with her to her home in the north. Grace follows and has adventures of her own show more that show her what her true feelings are. Along the way she gains a companion, a magical falcon that accompanies her and watches over her.

Like all fairy tales this book has a moral to teach and this one appears to be that life is full of possibilities and if you follow your heart you will find happiness. I enjoyed this story, it had the right balance of magic and whimsy, it is short with a good number of twists and of course, like all fairy tales had a lovely happy ending. show less

The "Once Upon a Time" series is a guilty pleasure for me, and I adore Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales. So when this retelling of "The Snow Queen" came out, I skipped the backlog of the rest of the books in the series I haven't yet read and dove head first into this one.

Aside from a few surface details, like the main characters living next door to each other, there isn't much in common with Andersen's original. And usually I'm all right with that, it's only a retelling after all. I'm all for different interpretations of fairy tales.

I was confused by the name change of the main female character (Grace instead of Gerda), even though the story stresses numerous times that names are extremely important. The main male character got show more to keep his name (only spelled "Kai" instead of "Kaj", but both are pronounced like "Kay"). It's rare for Andersen's characters to be given names in his original tales, but he gave them names in "The Snow Queen," so it puzzled me that Gerda's name was changed. I suppose it isn't as pretty sounding as "Grace."

The author also reminds us nearly every other page that the Snow Queen is named Deirdre and that her name means "Sorrow." Okay, thanks.

The Snow Queen here isn't a queen, but instead a cursed princess with the task of walking the earth forever, healing broken hearts, and being perpetually sixteen. We never actually get to see her heal any broken hearts, which is pretty disappointing because I was wondering how the heck she did it.

After reading the disappointing ending, maybe she can come heal mine. Dokey sacrificed the meaning of the original fairy tale for a fluffy, too-cute-for-its-own-good happy ending. But I understand. You can't have the moral of good conquers evil if there is no evil to conquer to begin with.

All in all, I did enjoy the story for what it was: a quick, guilty-pleasure-fairy-tale read. And that's the only reason I read the "Once Upon a Time" series anyway. show less

More accurately, Kai says he wishes to marry Grace not that he declares his love to her. Neither declares their love--though Kai accuses Grace of not loving him enough. I always eagerly look forward to each new 'Once Upon a Time' story from Simon and Schuster; aside from the well known tales there have been lesser known fairy tales and legends that have gotten spotlighted. When I heard about this one, by Dokey who I have admired for a while, I knew it had to be about the Snow Queen. I suggest heading over to SurLaLune Fairy Tales to read up quickly about the original tale before moving onwards here.

Dokey's rendition of Hans Christian Anderson's lesser known fairy tale The Snow Queen keeps pace well with the original tale, but adds show more flavor to it to attract new readers. This isn't to say that she follows the story completely and this may yet be one of the farthest from the outcome of the original tale yet to come in this serial of novels.

Like the original tale Dokey splits the story itself into fragments to follow after one or more of the protagonists of the story. Each 'part' is told in first person point of view from either Kai, Grace or Deidre (the Winter Child)'s perspectives and they weave in and out of each other companionably. The short nature of the novel cuts down on a lot of the adventure and spirit that other renditions have (The Snow Queen by Mercedes Lackey is very well done in this), but it keeps the focus on what's important. I felt the worst for Deidre, she deserved the fate handed to her not at all and she still remained light. I would have liked more about her journey as she mended hearts, but space didn't allow for that it seemed.

Kai and Grace are so well matched you know, almost from the start, it can't be. As a romance this novel doesn't hold up its end at all; there is little chemistry between any of the couples and one romance happens literally in the blink of an eye. Grace worries over marrying Kai, who she has known all of her life (literally), but then in a blink decides to marry someone else she has only just, formally, met? I wanted Deidre to be happy, so the ending fit that at least, it just did not meet any other expectations.

This is one of the weaker 'Once Upon a Time' stories yet produced (I think we're edging close to 20 books now in the series?), but I have hope for the next book in the series, Violet Eyes which is a re-telling of 'The Princess and the Pea'. show less

This was a very interesting book with some very intriguing characters. It has an interesting plot full of unexpected twists and turns that keep you interested and intrigued until you reach the end. It also gives you the opportunity to see into the minds of different characters by alternating points of view between the three main characters every couple of chapters. I found this to be a very enjoyable book to read.

"Winter's Child" is based on the fairy tale the "Snow Queen". I started this story eagerly but I didnt' know the "Snow Queen" tale. I can't tell you if the book fit the tale or how it differs. I can tell you that I enjoyed the book very much. "Winter's Child" is the story of teenage girl who is frozen at age 16. When she was a baby, her mother was vain and worried only about her looks. The angry North Wind blew in and took the baby away making it a Winter's Child. Her dark hair turned white and her skin turned pale. The King cursed the Queen for being vain and the Queen's mirror broke into many shards. The shards flew out the window in pierced many hearts across the land. One shard pierced the heart of the baby Winter's Child. At 16 the show more Winter's Child must begin a journey to find and repair all the hearts that have been pierced. In the meantime she must be a Winter's Child until her own heart is repaired. Her story finds itself intertwining with the story of childhood friends Kai and Grace. I won't say more as I don't want to give away any of the sweet twists and turns the fairy tale takes. I will complain that the story is too brief. I wanted more details, but how many fairy tales are truly detailed? I enjoyed this book enough that I want to read more of the Fairy Tales in this series (Once Upon a Time). In fact, as soon as I submit this, I am going to order a couple more! For teen and adults lover's of reimaged fairy tales...this book is a treat. show less

Themes: love, adventure, family
Setting: um, fairy tale land? with lots of snow and ice?

As you might guess, this is a twist on the fairy tale The Snow Queen. Except that the Snow Queen is Deirdre, which means Sorrow (pointed out more than once in the story), victim of a curse and not an evil queen, and that Gerda is named Grace, and she and Kai are both about 16. That, I think, is a good twist, since they always seemed a little young to be setting off on this adventure in the original story.

But forget the original. The real question for me, in any retelling, is does the new story work? Is it fresh, interesting, intriguing, heartbreaking? Is it a good story?

It's good. But it's not more than that. I didn't hate it. Dokey lets each of the show more three main characters tell a little part of the story. But with the characters being who they are, there's no huge climax at the end. Kai remained flat. Only the two girls were even a little fleshed out. But it seems that by twisting the story to make Deirdre more sympathetic, it just eliminated the real tension in the story. Yes, Grace ran into a few problems on her way to finding Kai, but they weren't really scary or hard or anything. It was disappointing. 2.5 stars show less

Winter’s Child is the retelling of the fairy tale “The Snow Queen”. Grace and Kai grew up as best friends. Kai has loved Grace for quite some time. When he finally lets Grace know of his love for her she begins to push him away. Winter’s child shows up and Kai leaves with her. This is when Grace realizes she truly loves Kai and misses him. She sets out after him, to find him. The story is told in different parts from each character’s perspective. I felt sorry for the Winter Child. She had to follow this path and she didn’t get to choose if she wanted to or not. Before reading this story I didn’t know there was a “Once Upon a Time Series” out there. I am interested in looking for the others and reading them. I enjoyed show more this one quite a bit. Part of that is because I have always loved fairy tales. show less