Thursday 23 February 2017

The Snow Cave

Welcome to the shadowy and not-so-shadowy space behind Sally's books. If you're not familiar with this blog, scroll down to see what it's all about.

The Snow Cave (Post 54) 

The Snow Cave (2003) is a bonsai novel, like Selka (Post 14); that is, a novel for confident readers which is much shorter than most. There was a wonderful period in the 1990s and early 2000s when there was a market for these books. They were part of the educational system, but they were every bit as imaginative and original as trade books. They weren't made to focus on a specific curriculum topic; they were made to encourage a love of reading.

The Snow Cave had its beginnings when my daughter and I went to Cradle Mountain and went for a walk in the snow. Neither of us had much experience with snow beyond a few flakes that melt when they hit the ground, so we were intrigued. A lot of the trees had heavy shawls of snow and some of the lower boughs drooped almost to the ground, making caves. We speculated that these would be a good place to hide.

The Snow Cave is about two children running and hiding for their lives. Someone is after them, and they go to ground in a snow cave where they try to comfort one another. Right at the end of the story they hear an unearthly voice calling... so out they get because it's Mum and she wants to know where they are.

Unfortunately, The Snow Cave doesn't seem to have been widely distributed, but the odd copy might pop up in bundles or second-hand sites. It also seems to be available HERE.


About the Blog

Sally is Sally Odgers; author, manuscript assessor, editor, anthologist and reader. (Sally is me, by the way, and I am lots of other things too, but these are the relevant ones for now.)

The goal for 2017 is to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. If you're an author, an aspiring author, a reader or just someone who enjoys windows into worlds, you might find this fun. This preamble will be pasted to the top of each post, so feel free to skip it in future.

The books are not in any special order, but will be assigned approximate dates, and pictures, where they exist. 

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