A review by gabmc
The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen

4.0

I can't believe I've never read this book before. I didn't even have a good idea of the story. At its heart it's a story about good and evil, told in seven chapters, featuring a young girl, Gerda, and her friend Kay. The first chapter is about an evil goblin who smashes a mirror into fragments so tiny that they can find their way into people's eyes and hearts. The mirror reversed how things looked - so anything beautiful looked ugly and anything ugly was magnified. We meet Gerda and her friend Kay in chapter two. Unfortunately, Kay gets tiny fragments of the mirror into his eye and heart. He eventually runs off to join the Snow Queen in her ice palace - his heart has turned to ice so he can't see anything wrong with the Snow Queen (and she is definitely no Elsa!). Gerda hunts for Kay and goes through several hurdles and meets some interesting characters, including a witch who imprisons her into a beautiful garden with talking flowers; a prince, princess and their talking crows; a family of robbers; a Lapp woman and a Finn woman before finally reaching the palace of the Snow Queen.