Snow Treasure

I sat in the curved part of the U of desks in Mrs. Galloway’s third grade class during the middle part of the year. Every morning we had SSR – sustained silent reading and that U- is where I sat for a week or two of mornings reading Snow Treasure.

Small little details about the book have stuck with me. The cover has 2 children on sleds and a purple border. I strongly remember not wanting the book to end. And I remember wanting to be the kids in the book. A few days before I left for Norway in February, I flashed on the book again and went to the library and then to the children’s desk to find the book. These are the details that I told her to help me find the book (I could not remember the title at the time). I told the librarian, “it’s a book about Norwegian children who put gold on the sleds to hide it from the Nazis. And it has a purple cover.” She typed in a few words into her data base / search catalogue and then asked “is it Snow Treasure?” Yes! I went to the children’s section to find it.

That night I read half the book – The premise is based on a real rumor (never to have actually been confirmed). The book is based on a story about children saving the Norwegian gold from Nazi hands, just as they are invading the country. It’s amazing because the book was actually published in 1942 while Norway was still occupied. That aside, as I read this book again a month ago, it talks about how the children ride on their sleds with the gold – down from their houses, past the German soldiers (who smile and let the children pass) and down the hill for perhaps half an hour. The problem I had reading it was that when I think sled ride, I think a quick 10 – 15 second ride (if I am lucky) down a hill. How could the children have actually sledded for 30 minutes (or even longer).

Ahhh – but they can. And children proved this to me last weekend. I went up to Nordmarka (north forest), which is a greenspace / park just north of oslo (if you take the subway line 1 and get off at any of the last 5 stops, you are in the Nordmarka). My intention was to go cross country skiing and get off at the very last stop. About 5 stops from the end, suddenly 10 kids with sleds got on the train. Hmmm. They stayed on the train to the end with me and jumped off the train, plopped down their sleds and they were off. I asked someone – where do they go?

To the bottom – was the response.

Well – how far is that?

Its about 15 minutes and it ends at a subway stop, so everyone just hops back one.

AMAZING. A sled run that I later found out runs for 2 km, drops 250 meters, and the translation of its name from Norwegian is “the corkscrew”. It was also the bobsled run for the 1952 Oslo Winter Olympics.

So much for my doubts about the book. Now I really know why I wanted to be the kids in the story - a 30 minute sled ride, must be fun.

Any books that you have remembered recently from when you were younger?