Snowed Up

by Rosalie K. Fry, Robin Jacques (Illustrator)

Although being snowbound in a Welsh farmhouse is at first a great adventure, three children must soon concentrate on finding food, fuel, and help.

Genres: Christmas, Fiction, Childrens

124 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Rosalie K. Fry was born on Vancouver Island. She made her home in Swansea, South Wales. During World War II she was stationed in the Orkney Islands, where she was employed as a Cypher Officer in the Women’s Royal Service. She wrote many stories and executed many drawings for a variety of children’s magazines in Great Britain. She was also known as a maker of children’s toys.

Reviews

[Hilary · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars rounded up. This was such a good old fashioned children's adventure, you could tell what was coming but that made it all the more fun. Four children are staying with their aunt and uncle in Wales, when disaster strikes the three younger children are sent home in a snowstorm and you can just imagine what happens next!

We really liked the characters, particularly Verity who was hopping about in excitement at the first sight of snowflakes just like we would be, and Brian who gave us a laugh out loud moment by the narator telling how he had to drag himself away from his English-Welsh dictionary to look at the snow and grown up 13 yr old Susan who frowned at it!

We enjoyed the home making scenes of the disused farmhouse and the part where on hearing noises they discover a buried group of sheep in the drifted snow, one with a newborn lamb. It was lovely the children cared so much about the animals

At the end of the story they have a Christmas celebration for what they call 'Old Christmas' on the 6th of December. There is a very touching scene where Verity brings a branch covered in icicles and finds a candle stump to light and puts the tree in a manger by the sheep and new born lamb and they sing a carol

Highly recommended.

[Manybooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Rosalie K. Fry's 1970 middle grade novel Snowed Up (which I read on Open Library but that I do now want a personal copy), sisters Susan, Anna, Verity (with Susan being the oldest and Verity the youngest) and their cousin Brian (who hails from Australia) are visiting family on a remote Welsh farm for Christmas when it begins to snow and with the snowfall rapidly turning into a raging blizzard. Now when their aunt slips on some ice and needs to go to the hospital with a badly broken leg, Aunt Marian and Uncle Fred jointly decide that the children should head back to their home, should head back to London immediately (well, except for Susan that is, who is to stay on at the farm in order to keep house for her uncle whilst her aunt is hospitalised). But Anna, Verity and Brian miss the local bus that is supposed to take them to the train station (to head to London) and are stranded in an abandoned farm cottage near the bus depot because of the blizzard, with Uncle Fred, Aunt Marian and Susan of course assuming that they are safely on their way, and in London, no one expecting them back either (as the decision to send the children home early was made so quickly that no telegrams etc. were sent, and that of course, the story being presented Snowed Up occurs before cell phones, emails and the like).

And Snowed Up has Fry's text expressively and generally really nicely showing how during the next several days post the stranding blizzard Anna, Verity and Brian scramble to find and prepare food, boil water, sleep comfortably, and keep warm until they can devise a plan of getting an SOS out they they need rescuing, with all of the children helping with finding food (namely swedes or as the are also known rutabagas that are being stored as cattle food), potable water, using hay to furnish sleeping quarters, collecting wood to keep a fire burning and the cottage and them sufficiently warm (and even rescuing a snowed up and suffering herd of Uncle Fred's sheep) and with Brian finally devising a rescue method (which ultimately proves successful, but no, what said method actually is, I will not be revealing this spoiler except to say that it is ingenious and totally something that in my opinion brainy Brian would come up with). Also, just to say that in the final chapter of Snowed Up (and right before the children are finally rescued by Uncle Fred), Anna and Verity making a Christmas scene (with the sheep, an icicle frosted twig and a candle stump found in the cottage) for January 6th, for so-called Old Christmas (or Epiphany) is absolutely textually lovely and is making both my inner child and also adult reading me smile joyously and appreciatively, and with both this, alongside of Anna, Verity and Brian being rescued as well as Uncle Fred feeling both grateful to and also proud of the children having rescued the sheep herd he thought were lost and had perished during the blizzard providing an absolutely magical and delightful ending for Snowed Up.

Now generally speaking, Snowed Up has been excellent and with my inner child really enjoying pretty much everything about Rosalie K. Fry's story (and therefore also kind of wanting a five star rating for Snowed Up). But as an adult reader, I do textually desire a bit more landscape and snow descriptions as well as somewhat less dialogue (and that I also find in particular Anna and Verity as characters sometimes a bit hard to distinguish, in particular at the beginning of Snowed Up). And as such, the average combined rating from both my adult reading self and my inner child for what Fry's penmanship provides in and with Snowed up needs to be not five but instead solidly four stars (and yes, also highly and warmly recommended, albeit I am not sure whether today's children would enjoy Snowed Up as much as my inner child has adored what Rosalie K. Fry presents and what I as an adult reader indeed also have very much liked, the lack of descriptions and too much dialogue for the most parting textually unproblematic and thus also hugely and delightfully notwithstanding).

Oh and finally, while I have generally enjoyed Robin Jacques' accompanying artwork for Snowed Up and think that his black and white illustrations present a very nice decorative trim without interfering with Fry's narrative, I do wonder why in one of the pictures for Snowed Up, featuring snowdrifts and a tree, Jacques has drawn said tree with a full array of leaves, although since it is clearly winter, there should obviously not be any leaves present at all anymore or only very very few of them (not enough for me to consider lowering my star rating for Snowed Up, but yes, I do find that particular image a bit strange and unrealistic).

[Abigail · Rating 3 out of 5]

Snowed Up, an engaging adventure story for middle-grade readers, follows the story of three cousins - Anna, Brian and Verity - who find themselves stranded at an isolated cottage in the Welsh countryside during a blizzard. Their adventure, while never approaching too close to hardship, does teach each of the three children something about their unexpected and untapped inner resources. There is a particularly lovely "Christmas" scene towards the end of the novel.

I was delighted to discover that Snowed Up had been illustrated by Robin Jacques, perhaps best known for his collaboration on Ruth Manning-Sanders' folklore collections. He also illustrated the original American editions of Joan Aiken's Black Hearts in Battersea and Nightbirds on Nantucket . His work is unmistakable, and my first glimpse of this title provided that rush of pleasure one feels at meeting an old friend in an unexpected place...

I'll conclude by noting that Rosalie K. Fry, like Ruth M. Arthur, seems to be one of those authors whose work has slipped into an undeserved obscurity. In a publishing world that always seems to be scrambling for "fresh" and "new" material, you'd think that someone would think about republishing a few of these out-of-print gems. It worked with L.M. Boston's Green Knowe Chronicles after all...

[Kathryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

My six-year-old son and I enjoyed this story. I started it the day we had our first snow and was able to make "snow pancakes" for us, just like in the story ;-) I think it's the sort of story that many of us kind of fantasized about as kids--having your own place, having to take care of yourself, no adults around, danger (but not too much) from Mother Nature, etc. etc. Fry creates a great atmosphere and her characters are relatable and likable. The ending with the "Old Christmas Day" chapter is absolutely beautiful and really gets to the heart of Christmas. This would be a lovely read at any time during the holiday season, and I would especially recommend it after Christmas as the story takes place after Christmas and ends on January 6th. On a totally personal note, I liked that the cousin Brian was from Australia and appreciated his little references to Australian Christmas celebrations -- my late grandfather was born in Australia and we have relatives there so I was always amused by the Christmas cards we'd receive from them that depicted beaches and the like ;-)
Thank you, Hilary, for recommending this! :-)

[Angie Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a sweet little kids' survival-type story set in an unusually harsh snowstorm in the Welsh mountains. I thought the author did a great job of getting the trio of kids into their predicament believably, and without any head-slapping "what on earth were you thinking" moments. I also liked the fact that the supplies they had on hand made sense for the story and the setting, as opposed to discovering shelves full of food in a forgotten cellar. :)

I wasn't particularly impressed with Aunt Marian's estimation of some of the children at the beginning, but I really liked seeing how each of them eventually ended up being an asset to the party. The fact that not everyone is as intuitive and "sensible" as Susan doesn't make them any less worthy or valuable, and they certainly proved it. I loved both the way that Anna stepped up and took on unexpected responsibility and especially the way that Brian contributed to their rescue without losing a particle of his intelligent, absorbed, and sometimes-oblivious personality. I think I would have liked to see Aunt Marian eat her words a little, but it was probably more important that the kids find it out for themselves. For that matter, she wasn't all that harsh in the first place... Ugh--it's hard to describe; she just very much rubbed me the wrong way. :S I did enjoy Verity's fun and refreshing perspective, which really helped to balance out Anna's more serious worries.

[Gina House · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5🌟 I adored this wintery middle grade book!! I found it at a thrift shop and loved the cover, so I took a chance. Wow, it was so good!

This story about three siblings caught in an unexpected snowstorm in Wales was lively, interesting and cozy! Plus, a lovely Christmas scene was just the cherry on top.

I found myself completely immersed in this book and it was really hard to put down. A new winter favorite for sure! Highly recommended!

[Kathryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m on a quest – limited only by my bank account -- to discover the works of Rosalie K. Fry, book by book. Ever since encountering the hauntingly beautiful “The Secret of Roan Inish,” a film based on a children’s book by Fry, I’ve been wanting know more about the story’s creator that can be supplied by her few sketchy, Google-able biographical facts. So I’m making an attempt to discover the artist through her art.

The book I pulled off the top of my stack of three was Snowed Up. As the title suggests, the tale’s young protagonists find themselves in the midst of an adventure caused by a blizzard. And some disturbingly myopic adults. I suppose if the children had remained in safety they wouldn’t have been allowed to become part of this sweet adventure but still, did Fry have to create adults with such weirdly dense priorities in order to set off the story’s chain of events?

Those events include a fair amount of danger which forces the children to – cheerfully, always cheerfully -- reach inside themselves to discover hidden stores of resourcefulness. They encounter an abandoned house whose name – Pen Mynydd (not quite as magical as Roan Inish but still lovely in a British Isles sort of way) -- they find carved in stone above one of the doors. Instead of magical seals, Snowed Up contains hungry sheep and an edible called a “swede,” ingested gratefully by both human and ovines (the S in “swede” is not capitalized so no, they don’t become so desperate as to develop a taste for Scandinavians).

Aside from one dreamy Christmas-inspired moment towards the end, the magical quotient in the book isn’t quite as high as that found in Roan Inish. And for all the danger the Snowed Up children face, the basic tenor of the book is as bright as the sun sparkling on the snow that reaches all the way up to the second floor windows of Pen Mynydd. Snowed Up was published in 1970 when I was 10, and although I didn’t read anything British outside of The Chronicles of Narnia when I was around that age, this book seemed somehow vaguely familiar: I don’t recall reading anything darker. Perhaps tragedy-as-children’s-story might have been introduced a few years later, in 1977 with Bridge to Terebithia. Current 10 year-olds devour dystopian novels like The Hunger Games (and the Harry Potter series had plenty of dark moments) but back in 1970, adventure books – at least those that flowed from the lovely pen of Rosalie K. Fry – weren’t all that scary.

All told, Snowed Up is a sweet little tale and I’m looking forward to reading my next Fry book in April.

[Teri-K · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely middle grade story about three cousins who get snowed in at a deserted house on a farm in Wales. I happen to love "snowed in" stories, and the children in this one are resourceful and fun. They manage to celebrate a touching "Old Christmas" (Jan. 6) with their Australian cousin, and arrange their own rescue.

[CLM · Rating 3 out of 5]

A charming story about siblings who get caught in a blizzard in Wales.

[Charlotte · Rating 3 out of 5]

not an extraordinarily good book, but a fine, pleasantly cold and snowy, kids coping on their own story. Susan, the oldest, is a typical mid-20th century English Susan, the capable sibling, but she doesn't get to be part of the survival adventure, so the next oldest has to cope...I didn't love it, but I don't regret buying it....

[Vicki Gooding · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Welsh blizzard/snowstorm, and three children who are resourceful and competent caught where no one knew where they were, and snow so deep they could not leave. Early January, but one of the best Christmases they will always remember.

[Joyce · Rating 3 out of 5]

A kid survival story, set in Wales. The kid's who were underestimated by the adults in the story proved to be truly resourceful.

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three children in Wales get stranded in an abandoned house during a blizzard after they miss their bus home. No one knows they're there, so it's quite an adventure.

[Ian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another childhood pleasure.

We were read this book by a teacher during "story time" at the end of the school day, early in the 70s... or was it on Jackanory? I can't remember. Anyway, I loved the story and how evocative it was of winter time.

For years I had a permanent search registered on Ebay, which eventually came up trumps. So I was able to relive the pleasure again, this time as an adult.

[Sharon Buxton · Rating 4 out of 5]

B. fiction, children's fiction, grades 4-6. Wales, children caught in blizzard, Weekly Reader Book Club, from stash, keep

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was read for an assignment in a publishing course. We were to read an out-of-print book and then create a book proposal to bring this back in print. While my proposal will focus on the need for realistic survival stories, and perfect timing with the survival theme in dystopian YA, this review will be different.

Anna, Brian, and Verity are cousins visiting family in Wales. Their aunt slips on some ice as a terrible blizzard sets in, and Aunt Marian and Uncle Fred decide the children need to head back to London immediately. The children miss the bus that would take them to the train station, and they are stranded in a farmhouse. The next several days the three scramble to find and make food, boil water, sleep, and keep warm till they devise a plan to be rescued.

On the surface it's an excellent read, especially for children. As an adult reader, though, I have to admit some flaws. First, there are very little descriptors. Sometimes it was difficult to distinguish between characters, and the story is mostly dialogue driven. I was surprised when hours had passed as one character spoke two sentences, such as "I am going to pack my bags. There, now I'm done, so let's check on Brian." (Not an actual quote.)

But when the children are stranded, the story became very fun to read. What sort of food would they eat? How do they plan to keep warm? How will they escape the buried farmhouse? In a time without cell phones and easy transportation, how did these children get in touch with other people in order to be rescued? Little hints are dropped throughout, a small mystery for child readers to solve as the story progresses.