After the Snow [Hardcover]

S. D. Crockett (Author)

Book Description

Release date: March 27, 2012

The oceans stopped working before Willo was born, so the world of ice and snow is all he's ever known. He lives with his family deep in the wilderness, far from the government's controlling grasp. Willo's survival skills are put to the test when he arrives home one day to find his family gone. It could be the government; it could be scavengers--all Willo knows is he has to find refuge and his family. It is a journey that will take him into the city he's always avoided, with a girl who needs his help more than he knows.

S.D. Crockett on narrative voice and an especially cold winter:

What was your inspiration for After the Snow?
Well, apart from the unbelievably cold winter during which I was writing—in an unheated house, chopping logs and digging my car out of the snow; I think much of the inspiration for the settings in After the Snow came from my various travels.

In my twenties I worked as a timber buyer in the Caucasus Mountains of southern Russia, and that work led to travels in Eastern Europe and Armenia. As soon as I step off the plane in those places it smells like home.

It may sound strange to say, when After the Snow is set in Wales, but really the practical dilemmas in the book come directly from places I’ve been, people I’ve lived with, and the hardships I’ve seen endured with grace and capability. I was in Russia not long after the Soviet Union collapsed and I’ve seen society in freefall. Without realizing it at the time I think those experiences led me to dive into After the Snow with real passion.

What would western civilization look like with a few tumbles under its belt? What would happen if the things we took for granted disappeared? I wanted to write a gripping story about that scenario, but hardly felt that I was straying into fantasy in the detail.

What do you want readers to most remember about After the Snow?
We all have the capacity to survive, but in what manner? What do we turn to in those times of trouble? Those are the questions I would like people to contemplate after reading After the Snow.

How did Willo’s unique voice come to you?
Willo’s voice appeared in those crucial first few paragraphs. After that it just grew along with his world and the terrible situations that arise. I think his voice is in all of us. We don’t understand, we try to make good—maybe we find ourselves.

How did you stay warm while writing this novel?
I banked up the fire—and was warmed by hopes of spring.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for AFTER THE SNOW:

“Willo tells this dark story in a heavy, coarse, broken, but often beautiful dialect: “People always looking to find the runt in you and needle it out if they can.” It’s hard not to wonder at first whether Willo is perhaps a little slow or unbalanced. If so, he’s also gifted — not only in snaring wild game (“Gonna want to show him something clever you done, like catching a big hare”), but also in his keen observation — and he is a deeply lovable character. Crockett has created a voice that gets inside you, a voice that, though limited in vocabulary and perspective, achieves remarkable emotional range. And Willo proves the perfect narrator for this harrowing tale about the dangerous new world of Crockett’s invention…. After the Snow is a coming-of-age novel, first and foremost — a brutal, tough and sometimes truly transcendent one. “ – New York Times Book Review

“…suspenseful and powerful…”-VOYA

 

“In this powerful first novel, global warming has killed the North Atlantic Current, sending the U.K. and much of the U.S. into a new ice age.”--Publishers Weekly, Starred

 

“A sentimental tale of hardships, resilience and first-time experiences that illustrates a universal truism: Hope springs eternal in the young.” -Kirkus, Starred

 

"...marks Crockett as a writer to watch."--Booklist

 

"What elevates Snow is the voice Crockett uses to tell the tale."--School Library Journal, Starred

 

About the Author

After the extremely hard winter of 2009, S. D. Crockett asked herself, "What if winter never ended?" and from that thought, her debut novel, After the Snow, was born. Crockett lives in the United Kingdom.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Age Range: 12 and up
  
• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Feiwel & Friends (March 27, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9780312641696
• ISBN-13: 978-0312641696
• ASIN: 0312641699
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #116,013 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Born in 1969, S D Crockett graduated from London University's, Royal Holloway and Bedford New College with a degree in Drama and Theatre Studies. She has lived in Russia, France, Turkey and Armenia and has worked as a trainee car mechanic, timber buyer, portrait painter and teacher.
She is married to artist Timothy Shepard and has two children.
Visit SD on: www.sdcrockett.com

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 17 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars S.D. Crockett has built a barren and cold world with an engaging and distinct voice. February 5, 2012

By Wendy L. Hines VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

Polar conditions have engulfed the earth. Many have died, but there are those that have learned to survive. Willo's family lives off of the grid in a cabin up in the mountains. There, they hunt and survive on the most basic of levels. Willo is a master trapper but has an odd quirk. He has a dog's skull woven into his hat. He believes the spirit of the dog fills him and speaks to him.

When Willo comes home one day after a day of trapping, he is shocked to see his family gone. The hearth is cold and he isn't sure where they would have gone. He heard yelling earlier while out, but he didn't think anything of it. Determined to find them, he stocks his sled with the minimum he will need to survive and sets out on a journey to his sister's place. Maybe her husband will know where his family has gone.

On his journey though, a winter storm sets in. Willo sees a ramshackle building nearby and heads to it, hoping for shelter. But who answers are a young girl and her brother. They beg Willo for food and help, but he is determined to find his family and leaves them. Later, when Willo has created a shelter for himself in the carcass of an airplane, he has second thoughts. He travels back to help them, but will they inhibit his goal to find his family?

After The Snow is a page-turning chilling adventure! S.D. Crockett has built a barren and cold world with an engaging and distinct voice. Willo is such a diverse character; I never could guess what he was going to do next. From one adventure to the next, I was rooting for him and his family. From new friendships to inconsolable loss, After the Snow is a must-read for any dystopian lover!

11 of 15 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Hunger Games in a Cold Climate March 9, 2012

By NyiNya TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

Our fifteen year old hero, Willo, lives in a dystopea that might be similar to the way most people lived during those dark years of European history. Scrabbling to survive, scraping a meager existence off of an unwilling land, with families forming their own little tribes united against all outsiders...and all outsiders posing a threat. Government is shadowy and threatening.

The story takes place in Wales, some time after a new ice age has decimated the population and turned cities into a horror show where survival of the fittest has devolved into survival of the most brutal. Religion has been reduced to totem worship (Willo wears a dog's skull to help him as a hunter), and goodness is pretty scarce on the ground. The harsh realities of life turn survivors into scavengers...upon the environment and one another.

Willo's family are "scragglers," who escaped from the city and its oppressive government and lawlessness to take their chances in a frozen and inhospitable wilderness. Apparently the oppressive government frowns on this and one day Willo comes home from tending his animal traps and find them gone. No explanation is offered and Willo doesn't seem all that curious. They could have been "disappeared" by the government, rounded up by those who trade in human flesh, who knows. Willo consults his totem...the dog in his head... and heads into the city where he hopes to find some alternative to the endless emptiness and loneliness of life in the wild.

Bad idea.

When civilization fell apart, it fell apart so completely that no vestiges were left. Even memories of how things were have been eradicated. No one is rebuilding, no one is combing the libraries for books on how to use solar power to warm things up, develop cold resistant crops, or remove an appendix. Humanity just scavenges whatever is handy for immediate needs, for food and shelter and clothing. We don't see many signs of the world that came before. There must be millions of vehicles rusting away on every street, but only the government makes use of them. Instead of developing alternate fuel sources, the citizenry just lug their bundles on their backs. Virtually none of our vast technology is available or of interest to the average survivor.

Compared to the ease with which books like the "Hunger Games" series allow us to suspend belief, After the Snow has several toe stubbing moments where we just shake our heads and say "No way." And the dialect spoken by Willo -- a kind of Dystopian Futuristic Welsh-Influenced English -- wears thin after a while. After all, translators of Anna Karenina didn't feel it necessary to make Vronsky and Anna sound like Boris and Natasha. Willo's colorful jargon is more annoying than illuminating, and a little would have been sufficient. After a while I was telling that dog in his head to sic him.

Still, the book deserves four stars. For young readers who may not be so analytical, it provides a very different experience from the usual end of the world as we knew it epic. It's challenging to read, somewhat thought-provoking, and provides an important glimmer of hope. Who wants kids thinking the future is hopeless? Let them believe we are not destroying it faster than we can fix it.

For what it's worth, Far North by Marcel Theroux is a much better book, his frozen dystopia is more realistic and interesting, his villians more believable, and his big, lumbering heroine -- whose cloddish appearance belies a very find mind -- is one of the best and most original characters in young adult fiction. Far North is classified YA, but has enough substance to appeal to adults.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars What if the winter never stopped? October 20, 2012

By Ksenia Anske

Format:Hardcover

I picked up this book at random, while visiting a library. Liked the cover, liked the first page, liked the tone. It was a hard read. If you're willing to pick through adolescent inside-the-head talk of the main character, you'll find dark beauty in this story, with scenes from crisp sunny winter mornings to frozen pits full of dead bodies to dark slushy roads of settlements. What if the winter never stopped? I've gotten lost in places, but overall enjoyed reading this journey of a book told from a teenage boy's perspective. Wouldn't read it again, though.