Grit, determination, and just a little bit of magic fill the pages of The Way Past Winter. An old enemy plays his hand. Can the survivors find a way to put an end to it all? Affiliate links will be used in this review, held on behalf of Raincoast books.
The Basic Details
Kiran Millwood Hargrave is the author of this Chronicle books published middle school read entitled The Way Past Winter. Youths grade 5 and up will be delighted with the bravery of Mila as she faces her greatest foe. A mage Rune helps her along the way. It is a page-turning adventure the shows the resilience of family, magic and friendship. Will it be enough to see them through the end? Will it see them past to the end of winter? I received an advanced reader’s copy of this 284-page book.
The Way Past Winter
Based on Slavic folktales, this children’s sibling book from Chronicle books is a fast paced novel guaranteed to keep the reader interested in what will happen next. As an adult reader I finished it in about an hour (mind, I am a fast reader).
You’ll find five different images delineating each chapter heading, they show the progress in the story. Scattered art work also help introduce the different sections of this tome based in fantasy and magic. Since I received an ARC copy I don’t know if the images will be in greyscale in the final copy.
Font size was larger, making it an easy fast read. Very comfortable for a youth 10 and up to engage with.
I really liked the variety in the girls characters, so very different from each other and yet very focused on helping each other. It was in essence… family being family despite their differences. This makes for a good read. 🙂
Should you get it?
Yes. I think so.
I enjoyed it although the story went in a different direction than I thought it would. My thought was it would all be about respecting the earth and the things of the earth. It was less about that, and more about family and combatting the things which made life difficult.
The Way Past Winter shows the resilience of family and friendship. A determination from three unremarkable girls to make things right again.
It would be interesting to use it as a character study as each of their girls, their brother and the mage are quite different. Or as a way to jumpstart a conversation about how to care for the earth, or looking into Slavic folklore and how it influences different genres of books. It’s a good story to just stand on its own as a fantasy novel.
Sounds like an interesting story line and I like that it is pulling from folk tales.
it is an interesting book