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The Snow Queen

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

Hans Christian Andersen's beloved tale The Snow Queen is an enchanting story of the bond of love and friendship between young playmates Kai and Gerda. When a small shard of a wicked troll's broken mirror lodges in Kai's eye and heart, he loses his joyfulness and sees only the world's imperfections. With his heart turned to ice, the Snow Queen kidnaps him and returns to her castle in the far northern reaches of Lapland.

Gerda, heartbroken but innocent and full of love, sets out to find her dear friend. Along the way she encounters a bewitching old woman, talking crows, a prince and princess, and others who help her on her journey. With childlike faith and pureness. she finds the strength to continue on to the Snow Queen's isolated palace, never giving up on hope that she will reunite with Kai and thaw his heart.

Told in seven parts, this classic fairy tale is considered one of Andersen's finest works and has inspired countless other stories, including Disney's smash hit Frozen. Princess-obsessed kids and parents alike will be charmed by Gerda's perseverance and faith throughout this tale of friendship, love, and bravery.

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  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Katherine Kellgren's performance wrings all of the emotion and suspense from Andersen's classic tale of friendship, innocence, wickedness, and despair. In a large, crowded town, two children become as brother and sister. When Kai is struck by a shard of magical glass, his heart turns to ice, and he's captured by the evil Snow Queen. His loving playmate, Gerda, risks everything to rescue her companion, meeting a host of strange characters on the way to the Snow Queen's palace. Kellgren becomes the restrained storyteller, an old witch, talking crows, and more as she spins Andersen's iconic story to its happy conclusion. Those who have been engaged by the alternative retellings of the past few years will be newly enchanted by the original. S.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      October 4, 1993
      Lewis's commanding translation of this Andersen classic rings with nobility even as it maintains a colloquial jauntiness. The famously gripping narrative, of tender-hearted Gerda's epic quest to rescue her friend Kay from the frozen realm of the Snow Queen, is respectfully and insightfully introduced by Lewis. She points out, for example, that, of all of Andersen's major tales, The Snow Queen is ``the most free from ill fortune, sorrow, unkind chance'' and that its protagonists ``make their own luck, good or bad, as they go''; and that it is the ``only great classic fairy tale in which every positive character is a girl or woman . . . while the victim to be rescued is a boy.'' Barrett (see review of Beware Beware , above) contributes gentle watercolor and pencil illustrations, evoking an ageless fairy-tale realm while a frisson of danger lingers beneath her flower-filled images. Pictures of icy wastes--a flurry of blue, white and violet--are especially striking. Inset illustrations and incidental art as well as full- and double-page pictures are interspersed throughout the very substantial text in an agreeable book design that accommodates the youngest members of the target audience. Ages 4-up.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      September 1, 1987
      In one of Andersen's most beautiful stories, the boy Kay leaves his companion Gerda to go far north with the evil, cold-hearted Snow Queen. Gerda goes in search of Kay, encountering many adventures, but eventually finds the boy and melts the ice in his heart with her tears. Watts' illustrationsdespite her lovely, unpretentious characters, detailed renderings of simple interiors and pastoral exteriorsfail to capture the spirit of this dark, mysterious story; the powerful telling loses impact in the sweet, unthreatening pictureseven those of ominous events. Ages 5-8.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      August 26, 2013
      This Andersen tale, one of the few with a genuinely happy ending, provides a showcase for Ibatoulline’s dazzling gifts. The story of Kai’s enchantment and Gerda’s long search to rescue him offers the artist a bouquet of exotic scenes to bring to life. In one, a robber girl brings Gerda to her hideout; Ibatoulline (The Matchbox Diary) paints a dimly lit stable where a lion, flock of doves, reindeer, and other animals are held captive. In another, flickering firelight illuminates the interior of a Lapp woman’s tent. Dramatic special effects—a talking crow, a skyful of Northern Lights, and the eerily icy Snow Queen herself—are rendered in thrilling detail. Only the characters’ faces, which have the static look of portraits painted from photographs, ruffle the perfection of the spreads. The uncredited retelling (“Don’t you see she has the power within her?... Look at all the animals and people who have served her.... That is her true power”) draws little attention; it’s the magnificent artwork that will keep readers poring over the pages. Ages 4–8. Illustrator’s agent: Nancy Gallt, Nancy Gallt Literary Agency.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      October 6, 2014
      Italian illustrator Baroni’s background in character design brings a fantasy aesthetic to Godeau’s retelling of this Andersen fairy tale. Kay and Gerda are drawn as older children with lean features and blousy peasant clothing; Gerda’s hair often blows dramatically in the wind. Godeau follows Andersen’s original closely, though the translation is graceless in places: “But, the weight of the mirror caused his arms to fiercely shake.” Godeau recounts Kay’s enchantment as he is pierced and frozen by shards of a magic mirror and then captured by the Snow Queen. Gerda’s journey to the North to find Kay is told as a series of episodic encounters with colorful characters: a sorceress, a talking reindeer, and many more. Baroni’s most remarkable creation is the Snow Queen’s black castle, shown on the endpapers; soaring up from two mountain peaks, it features a dizzying aerial bridge and dozens of lit windows. For an older audience, this is a version of the tale that offers a bit of an edge, visually bridging the worlds of classic fairy tales and game culture. Ages 7–up.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      October 3, 1994
      Lynch (Melisande; The Steadfast Tin Soldier) brings exquisite grace and elegance to his illustrations of Andersen's classic story of the power of love to heal even the most hardened and icy heart. The design is impressive: delicate black lines frame the four columns on each spread while the art varies not only in placement and size but also in style. A Victorian garland of flowers circling the text of Gerda's prayer is juxtaposed with an Andrew Wyeth-like panel depicting the snow falling on Kay's sleeve, while the wicked goblins and their distorting mirror recall Rackham or even Hogarth. Lynch sometimes departs from the text with intriguing results. For example, the Snow Queen's guards, described by Andersen as ``great ugly porcupines, others like snakes rolled into knots with their heads peering out, and others like little fat bears with bristling hair,'' are pictured as splintered icy dragons or gargoyles under attack from triumphant golden angels in Roman armor. Retold from the original English version by Caroline Peachy, this narrative omits some of the excursions found in the original, but Lynch's Snow Queen remains a dazzling and irresistible enchantress. Ages 6-10.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • Lexile® Measure:480
  • Text Difficulty:1-2

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