For more information about the Concord Public Library, visit concordpubliclibrary.net.

The Snow Child

Eowyn Ivey

2012, 389 pages

Fiction

As a young couple, Jack and Mabel dreamed of having many children. After years of childlessness, they are finally blessed, but the baby is stillborn. Devastated, Jack and Mabel leave Jack's family farm in Pennsylvania to homestead in the wilderness of Alaska.

Author Eowyn Ivey is a native of Alaska. She grew up living - and continues to live - a subsistence lifestyle there. Her description of the day-to-day struggle to survive and eke out a living is authentic. The hard life and the climate combine to separate Jack and Mabel into their own daily, solitary routines. Jack is stoic, Mabel depressed.

Then one night, after the first snowfall of the season, a wild child visits. She never stays and the couple is never quite sure that she is real, or if she has somehow been created by their desire for a child. Real or not, the child brings a breath of hope and allows the couple to dream together again.

New library hours

Effective Sept. 4, the Penacook Branch Library at 3 Merrimack St. will increase its hours of operation by opening on Friday afternoons.

The branch library's hours will be:

Monday: 2:30 - 5:30 p.m.

Wednesday: 2:30 - 8:30 p.m.

Friday: 2:30 - 5:30 p.m.

Saturday: 9 a.m.- noon