DancingThroughTheSnowDancing Through the Snow, by Jean Little • Kane Miller, 2009

Originally published by Scholastic Canada in 2007, Dancing Through the Snow tells the story of Min (don’t call her Minerva), a “foundling” buffeted from foster home to foster home after being abandoned in the washroom of the Canadian Nation Exhibition when she was three.

When her latest foster mother gives her up (complaining that Min “gives me the creeps”) just before Christmas, Min expects to be shuffled into yet another mismatched home. But then Jessica Hart, a doctor who has been kind to Min in the past, swoops in, taking Min home.

Honestly, this book had me in tears from the very start. Something about Min, and the bond she forms with Jess, just got to me. There are shades (and even shout outs to) the bond between Marilla and Anne in Anne of Green Gables, with a relationship that goes beyond a saccharine story of belonging, and captures the importance of understanding, of love, and of the unconditional acceptance in family life.

This isn’t a perfect book. Some of the story seems too good to be true, with Min’s life becoming almost impossibly rosy once she finds a home with Jess. But the story is so warm and well told, I honestly didn’t care.

Children as young as nine and on up to early high school will enjoy Min’s story, and just as Min finds comfort in books that reflect her own situation, foster children may recognize something of Min’s struggle in their own lives.