The Snowstorm

By Beryl Netherclift

Copyright 1967

Last week I wrote about C.S. Lewis and his Narnia books.  This week, I read a book that is reminiscent of The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.  

In The Snowstorm, three siblings travel to their aunt’s house in the country while their parents go on a cruise.  Exploring Farthingales, the decrepit old home, they come upon an object on the library shelf that has magical powers.  Not a wardrobe, as in Lewis’ books, but a beautiful snow globe.  Through it, the children find they can communicate with ancestors who have previously lived at the old estate.  The children have adventures they never expected when an actual snowstorm separates them from their aunt and they have to survive on their own.  Can these ghosts in the snow globe help them find Aunt Amethyst and the treasure to save her beloved home?  

It was one conversation in the book that really caught my attention.  

The night after discovering the magical snow globe, the children discuss the room they found it in.  There is something about that library that is different from other rooms.  

“Yes, still, there was something about the library.  Something…something…. What was it?  It’s a feeling of things being concentrated there.  Something watchful, as if…”

That is how I sometimes feel while in a library surrounded by old books.  As if the people who read the books before me are there too.  The notes they have left on the pages are calling out.  As if the beloved fictional characters are waiting, hoping to come alive when their pages are opened.  Things are concentrated there.  The hopes and fears of authors, characters, and past readers – all in one room.

Yes, there is something about a library that is different from other rooms.