Review of “Breadcrumbs” by Anne Ursu

This wonderful modern retelling of “The Snow Queen,” (a fairy tale by author Hans Christian Andersen first published in 1845) is a touching and at times scary story about change and loss, and the challenging process of surviving them.

Hazel and Jack are each 11 years old, and have been best friends since they were six. Hazel feels an obligation to be there for Jack now that his mother is suffering from depression. After all, when Hazel’s parents got divorced, Jack tried to cheer up Hazel by giving her his most prized possession – a baseball signed by Minnesota Twin MVP Joe Mauer. He also is her only friend at the public school she goes to now. Her father will no longer pay for her to go to her private school where creativity was valued; in the public school, the emphases on rules and memorization are so different that Hazel has trouble adjusting. In sum, Hazel, adopted from India, never feels like she fits in anywhere with her different looks and different interests except when she is with Jack.

One day out on the playground, Jack gets injured by a piece of enchanted mirror that falls from the sky. It was made by a demonlike creature, and it turned Jack’s heart to ice. He begins to be mean to Hazel, and then he disappears; he has gone off to live with an icy white witch called The Snow Queen. Hazel doesn’t think about how Jack has changed; she only knows that her friend needs to be rescued. She takes a backpack with some emergency items and Jack’s baseball, and heads into the enchanted woods to find the Snow Queen and get Jack to come back home with her.

In the woods, Hazel must overcome not only the fear of the unknown that awaits her, but a bunch of threatening characters from other fairy tales in what the author, in an interview, called “a sort of dark Hans Christian Andersen theme park.” Hazel has to summon all her reserves of courage and determination to get through the woods, which she does, in the name of friendship. But all of this is only the prelude to the real battle: getting Jack to want to come home.

Discussion: Like all fairy tales, this one uses magic metaphorically so that the story can be read and understood on multiple levels. Hazel has already seen Jack is changing before the magic mirror affects him; he wants to hang out with other boys more, and he is becoming “scratchy and thick,” which is Hazel’s way of characterizing the changes in her friend. Indeed, even the witch warns her that someday Jack will be a man: “you will not even know him, and he will only think of you with a passing smile.” But Hazel understands that already there have been many Jacks and many Hazels: “And maybe she wasn’t going to be able to know all the Jacks that there would be. But all the Hazels that ever would be would have Jack in them, somewhere.”

This is not all she learns on her journey, which forces Hazel to grow up as well. Most of what she learns has to do with the hazards of wanting something for yourself, without thinking about others. There will always be a cost. And some times what you think is your “heart’s desire” turns out much differently than you expected. She also learns there are some things she can never understand, but she must adapt to them anyway, because they are part of the world.

For the most part I loved the updating from “The Snow Queen,” except for one change. In the original, the boy’s heart is restored when the tears of the little girl fall onto his chest and penetrate his heart, melting the lumps of ice and consuming the splinters of the mirror. In this update, Hazel cries, but it is only when Jack takes the baseball and squeezes it that he recognizes Hazel and the breakthrough is made. I thought the original better answered the question of how Jack escaped the spell on him, while also reinforcing the ties between the two children.

Evaluation: Yet another book that makes the point “the world isn’t always what we can see.” This lovely recasting of a fairy tale is intended for middle grade and up, but might be scary for the younger readers in that category.

Rating: 4/5

Note: The book includes captivating illustrations by Erin McGuire, some of which are shown above.

Published by Waldon Pond Press, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2011

For more reviews of books for children and teens, go to Booking Mama’s feature, Kid Konnection, posted on Saturdays. If you’d like to participate in Kid Konnection and share a post about anything related to children’s books (picture, middle grade, or young adult) from the past week, leave a comment as well as a link on her site.

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