Touching Snow

Touching Snow

By Felin, M. Sindy.

(2007). New York, NY: Atheneum.

ISBN: 978-1416917953

Reading Level: Grades 7-9

Summary: “The best way to avoid being picked on by high school bullies is to kill someone,” and thus starts the novel Touching Snow. Part thriller and mystery part coming-of-age and love story, Touching Snow details the struggles of 13-year-old Karina and her family. Karina’s honest, riveting voice tells the reader, almost as a friend, of the brutal abuse she and her sisters suffer at the hands of “the Daddy,” her stepfather. Born in the US to a Haitian immigrant mother, Karina is a member of a large extended Haitian immigrant family. But no one, not even the law, seems to be able to protect her and her sisters from the “beat-ups” that sometimes leave them just this side of dead. In addition to the extreme violence she is forced to withstand at home, outside of the home she is confronted with racism, and xenophobia. It is under these circumstances that Karina, prone to crushes on girls and fainting spells, struggles with schoolwork, making friends, and figuring out who she is.

Review: Gripping from its first line, Touching Snow leads the reader on a disturbing, yet engrossing, journey into the life of Karina. The writing compels the reader to feel what Karina is experiencing, and to cheer for Karina’s survival, under extraordinarily difficult circumstances. Though the novel is set in the 1980’s, the characters grapple with issues that are present today and will, unfortunately, be present in the future. With complex and multi-faceted characters and disturbing violence, this book is better suited to more mature tweens. Award winning and critically acclaimed, Touching Snow deserves a spot in a core collection of tween mysteries. Its protagonist, a tween girl of Haitian descent, in a budding lesbian relationship, brings an underrepresented, and authentic, voice to tween mysteries.

Selected Awards: National Book Award Finalist 2007, Edgar Award Nomination for Best Young Adult Mystery 2008, ALA and YALSA’s Best Books for Young Adults Honor 2008