A Snowy Silver Lining

 So first I must apologise for my absence over the last few weeks. I've been on placement with the fabulous HarperCollins in the children's editorial and publicity departments and trying to be a real person has taken away most of my brain power. However, I finish next week, which will be horribly sad, in fact, why are you making me think about that? How mean!

Moving swiftly on, I'm currently sitting in my pajamas on the sofa, watching Saturday Kitchen Live, and trying not to look out the window. I can't believe it's snowing...in March. Anyone remember March 2012? There was sun, lots of sun. But, ever the optimist, I thought I would search out that silver lining for you all. Not surprisingly, my silver lining involves books. 

The Perfect Books for a Snowy Day

Harry Potter - All of them, because they are all perfect for all occasions.

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey: not only does it look like a beautiful book but the story is just as enchanting. 

Jack and Mable, in their cold homestead in deepest Alaska, don't have any children, something that is a constant ache on Mable's heart. One evening, in a rare and playful mood, they make a child out of snow and decorate her with a scarf and gloves. The next day, the snow child is ruined but there are mysterious footprints leading away from the pile of discarded snow and the clothes are missing. When a beautiful little girl appears in the Alaskan forest, dressed in the same scarf and gloves as their snow child, Jack and Mable cannot help but fall in love with her, but it cannot be winter forever and Mable cannot forget those footprints in the snow. So begins a magical and charming story full of love, mystery and beautiful landscapes. Perfect for curling up on the sofa and pretending the wind howling outside is a wolf cry from the snowy mountains. 

The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis: An oldie but a goody and certainly a book I never get bored of. Need I tell you the story? If I do then you don’t deserve to be reading this blog and I demand you go out and read the story immediately. I think this book is great for a snowy, miserable day because the adventures of the Pevensey children start on that very sort of day. If it had been sunny and delightful they never would have resorted to hide and seek and Lucy would never have hidden in the wardrobe, fallen through the back and ended up in a snow-covered, talking-animal inhabited and wonderful land known as Narnia. I recommend you read this and then go and try and get in your wardrobe, I can almost guarantee that you will get to Narnia too, as long as you stay in there long enough. 

For those of you who like denial when it’s miserable outside, I am suggesting The Island by Victoria Hislop. OK, so maybe the leper element is not, ultimately, happy, but it is set in sunny and gorgeous Crete. It is also a brilliant story full of secrecy, love and tragedy that I can promise you will be completely sucked into. Alexis has never known much about her mother’s past, but on a life-changing mission, travels to the little Cretan village of Plaka, which holds the answers to the secrets of her mother’s life. It is heartwarming, sob-worthy and has a blissfully beautiful, albeit tragic, setting. Hopefully you will be so swept away that if you keep your back to the window you won’t even notice the misery outside. 

I could go on, but surely this horrible weather will have gone by the time you’ve read all three books right? RIGHT?

Why The Long Face?

And now IKEA. I’m so upset about the meatballs, apart from pretending you live there and enjoying the immense risk and danger of going off the path, those meatballs were the best things about IKEA. Now we find out that the secret to their deliciousness may have been in the beef…the secret being that is wasn’t all beef, some of it was horse.

This news story has rather rocked our country in the recent weeks. Naturally, there is outrage that this has so easily happened and we, the consumer, have been eating something without being made aware of it. As many articles have pointed out, this is more an issue of fraud than of food safety. It also begs the questions of why beef is being substituted for horse; according to Q & A Horsemeat Scandal, it’s because horsemeat is cheaper than beef so the substitution is an easy way of making the meat go further.

As well as outrage coming from the fraud aspect of the scandal, there is also something about eating horse that feels essentially ‘wrong’ to many Britains. Eating horse in Britain became taboo gradually, we were certainly munching away on geegees at the end of the last ice age, so what changed? It’s likely to be around the same time horses became domesticated that peoples’ attitude towards them began to change and there is evidence of this happening as early as 4000 BC.



However, as with many of the big changes in Britain, the main influence seems to have come from the Church. At some point, possibly as far back as 732 AD, the Vatican announced that eating horse was a pagan activity and not acceptable behaviour among well-to-do Catholics. This decision was fairly widely rebuked by most European countries who continued nibbling their neighing Nellys well into the nineteenth century, but it does seem to have had quite an impact on English-speaking countries. Perhaps this religious influence, paired with the psychological impact of our relationship with horses, is what has made eating horse just not the done thing.



 Drawing on the psychological aspects, and desperately clawing my way back to a publishing and book related topic, I thought I’d look at horses in literature that encourage our sentimental attachment to the animal.



One of my favourites is Angharrad from the Chaos Walking trilogy by Patrick Ness. Angharrad is a gentle soul who is one of the only characters to understand Todd, Ness’ troubled protagonist.

Good old Boxer in George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Poor, dimwitted Boxer is a stoical chap who believes in hard work and a good regime. He never doubts the words of those in command, unfortunately, it is this that leads to his downfall.





Fledge the winged wonder. Formally known as Strawberry, he worked in London pulling handsome cabs, but in true C.S Lewis style, he is magically transported to Narnia and given wings by Aslan.

Shadowfax, the chief of the Mearas. One of those names I can’t say in a normal voice (have to either sound like Aslan or Mufassa saying "Simba!"). He’s fearless, fast and fighsty; only Gandalf is permitted to ride him and that's only if Shadowfax allows. It is due to his epicness that we get the line “Run, Shadowfax, show us the meaning of haste.”



A horse that has made me cry more than any other is the kind, gentle and brilliantly brave Joey, a war horse like no other. Told from Joey’s point of view, War Horse by Michael Morpurgo lets you to really get to know and feel for this incredible character.



Last but not least, probably the most famous horse in British literature, Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty. I definitely cried a lot at this book too. Kindness, sympathy and respect are big themes in this story and similarly to Joey in War Horse, Black Beauty tells his own story. Through his life we see the full range of treatment horses can expect at the hands of humans. If any horse can teach us what the relationship between man and beast can mean, it’s Black Beauty.