George develops the character of pika or lass well. She is the youngest and unwanted child of nine children. Cold has enveloped the land making it hard for her parents to feed their children. Her mother refuses to give her a name because girls are worthless in her eyes.
Pika is strong, smart, and caring. Her father is kind to her, but her mother is cold. Her brother, Hans Peter comes back after years away at sea, but he is a changed man, depressed and melancholy. He teaches her a language of symbols that he learned while he was away. This language helps the lass when she is taken from her home to dwell in an ice castle with a great white bear. This story has magical elk and bears along with trolls and other magical folk.
I was left with some unanswered questions about the nature of Troll magic, but this story is a quick and light read that goes into more detail than a classic fairy tale. George paces the story so that I wanted to keep reading.
Read to a child today even if that child is you.
Link to our NICU book registry if you'd like to donate books to babies in the newborn intensive care unit so their parents can read to them while they grow. You can also donate gently used books to our project by sending them to me or to Angie. Email me for a mailing address. We can use both English and Spanish books. If you have a graduate of the NICU, or if you have a baby whose life you would like to honor by donating books to this project, let me know, and I can make a book plate with their name for the books you donate.
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