Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.

After the Snow

ebook
0 of 0 copies available
Wait time: Not available
0 of 0 copies available
Wait time: Not available

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.

  • Creators

  • Series

  • Publisher

  • Awards

  • Release date

  • Formats

  • Languages

  • Levels

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from January 16, 2012
      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. Fifteen-year-old Willo—born in the barren, snow-covered mountains of northern Wales—has never known anything but the cold; half-feral, he barely listens when his father tells him stories of the times before the weather changed. Coming home from a day on the mountain, however, he finds his family has been taken away by government men. Then, heading back up the mountain, seeking refuge from the weather, cannibals, and feral dogs, Willo stumbles on two abandoned children. His first instinct is to “go quick away from those kids just standing all frozen and starving with their dark eyes begging me,” but his basic humanity eventually intervenes. This brutal and at times terrifying postapocalyptic tale features a well-developed first-person narrator, strong secondary characters, and spare but compelling language. Despite its grim take on humanity’s willingness to do evil, it also demonstrates that, even under the most straitened circumstances, people are capable of unexpected kindness and altruism. Ages 12–up. Agent: Greenhouse Literary Agency.

    • Kirkus

      Starred review from January 15, 2012
      Debut author Crockett's poetic first-person narrative depicts an adolescent's coming of age amid wartime havoc and an unforgiving, possibly post-apocalyptic winter. When Willo's family vanishes from their wintry cabin, he sets out on his own to find them, leaving his home in the hills for the nearby town, which is undergoing a Nazi-like occupation. The war is a nebulous monster; though Crockett alludes to World War II, she never fully explicates the novel's timeframe, which may frustrate some readers. Willo's inventive argot is part-urban vernacular and part-forester twang, and though it offers no clues as to setting or time, it conveys exceptional metaphors that evoke nature and the elements. People Willo has trusted betray him in the face of scarce food and the authorities' hunt for a faceless resistance, but he perseveres, seizing opportunities to earn his bread and doggedly pursuing information about his father. On his journey he meets a young girl who turns out to possess unexpected significance in the political landscape, figuring even in his own legacy, a thing he discovers in his difficult search. Willo endures cruel brutality, but Crockett renders in him an intense psychological transformation that is authentic to his character and his circumstances, culminating in discovery of his own voice and vision. A sentimental tale of hardships, resilience and first-time experiences that illustrates a universal truism: Hope springs eternal in the young. (Fiction. 12 & up)

      COPYRIGHT(2012) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

    • School Library Journal

      Starred review from March 1, 2012

      Gr 8 Up-What if, instead of a warmer future, "every thing got proper cold"? What if "the seas stopped working," and those who didn't move to the crowded, smelly cities approved by the government became "stealers" and "stragglers" and lived off the grid? Russia and China are big influences in this new order, and the yuan is the preferred currency. Willo's family are stragglers, living in the frigid mountains of Wales. Willo has a talent for hunting and helps his father turn hides into finely crafted coats, boots, and gloves. Cat and dog make the finest furs, though Willo catches mostly rabbits. When he returns from a hunt to find the cabin deserted, he knows something bad has happened. He packs a sled with supplies and heads off to find his family. His first encounter is with Mary, almost starving, whose father is a pony man, also missing. Willo intends to take Mary only as far as the power lines, where she can be picked up by a snow truck, but events tumble both teens onto a transport into the city. The bones of this story are not new: civilization trying to reform after human-caused catastrophe. Some people try to make a better world, and others ask only what's in it for them. What elevates Snow is the voice Crockett uses to tell the tale. Willo's narration, with misspellings and inventive phrasings, is a voice we have not heard before. Graphic violence occurs in several places, but Crockett's cold, brutal world is not without a few warm rooms where travelers can rest and prepare for the next challenge.-Maggie Knapp, Trinity Valley School, Fort Worth, TX

      Copyright 2012 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • Booklist

      March 1, 2012
      Grades 8-12 People barely remember the time before the new Ice Age. Now, punishing snow is a year-round occurrence, and 15-year-old Willo and his family scrape out a living in the wilderness, trapping animals for skins that they can then sell to what remains of the government. One day Willo's family vanishes, and so he starts toward the violent, miserable, beggar-filled city to find them. Along the way he runs across a freezing little girl and decides to save herdespite the advice of the dog, an imaginary companion who offers cold, survivalist advice from the dog skull Willo keeps lashed to his hat. At its best, this bleak debut recalls Patrick Ness' The Knife of Never Letting Go (2008) and Cormac McCarthy's The Road (2006), with the brave young narrator navigating the horrors of a wasted world in broken English ( she look like a worm do ). There is a staginess to the ending that feels incongruous with the naturalistic style of the rest of the book, but nevertheless this marks Crockett as a writer to watch.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)

    • The Horn Book

      March 1, 2012
      Fifteen-year-old Willo tires of the grown-ups' stories of "the old time, before the sea stop working, before the snow start to fall and fall and fall and don't stop." All he has ever known is this future ice-age world, and his family roughing it on the mountain. His trapping skills help with their survival, but one day he returns home to find his family gone, stranding him in the frozen mountains of Wales. He sets off toward the city in search of his family, meeting a thirteen-year-old girl named Mary on the way. Entering the city is like Dante's entering the gates of Hell. A sign daubed on a wall proclaims, "There is no law beyond / Do what thou wilt." But Willo doesn't abandon hope, and finds brief refuge with Piper, the rat man who recites Browning, and Jacob the furrier, who leads Willo toward news of his father. The strengths of the novel are Willo's distinctive first-person voice and the carefully delineated dystopian world, especially the hellish city with its slushy streets and foul air, gangs, dogs, soldiers, and fascist government in league with powerful business interests. Willo's oft-repeated slogans and parroting of his father's admonition to be a "beacon of hope" wear thin, but allusions to Yeats and Genesis and Browning and various fairy tales lend epic weight to Willo's journey in this absorbing first novel. dean schneider

      (Copyright 2012 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

    • The Horn Book

      July 1, 2012
      Fifteen-year-old Willo and his family live in a future ice-age world. One day he comes home to find his family gone, stranding him in the frozen mountains of Wales. Willo's first-person voice is distinctive; the dystopian world, especially the hellish city, is carefully delineated. Allusions to Yeats, Genesis, Browning, and various fairy tales lend epic weight to Willo's journey.

      (Copyright 2012 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • ATOS Level:3.8
  • Lexile® Measure:700
  • Interest Level:9-12(UG)
  • Text Difficulty:2

Loading