Snow Treasure
By Marie McSwigan
Illustrated by André LaBlanc
156 pp. New York
Scholastic Inc. $4.50.
(Ages 8 to 11)
Imagine a pack of defiant Norwegian children, cheeks flush with excitement and cold, assisting in the resistance effort under the watchful eyes of occupying Nazi soldiers. They zip through the snow-burdened hills on sleds, concealing their smuggled goods under the guise of child’s play, signaling secret messages with their eyes and forming action groups with classmates. This is the premise of Marie McSwigan’s Snow Treasure, a fantastic but charming book about Norwegian resistance during WWII.
Based on a “true rumor” about the Bomma, a Norwegian freighter that smuggled $9,000,000 worth of gold bullion from Norway to the United States in 1940, Snow Treasure focuses on Peter, a brown-eyed twelve-year old who has been delegated “President of the Defense Club” at his village school. The son of the local banker, Peter leads the local pre-adolescents in an effort to smuggle gold bullion away from the greedy hands of Nazi soldiers and on to a ship bound for America.
Though a plot that involves burying gold bullion under snowmen may at first seem unbelievable, one soon gets caught up in the town’s shared conspiracy against the Germans. The intricacy of war-time resistance is marvelously illustrated here by McSwigan; snow tracks are covered, suspicious items camouflaged, and school-wide epidemics are concocted in an attempt to keep the distant but menacing soldiers blind to what is going on beneath the peaceful surface of town-life.
Even more appealing is McSwigan’s attention to the subtle forms of social resistance which so frustrated occupying soldiers during that period. Like their parents, Peter and his friends practice avoidance and silence even in the face of friendliness, as well as demonstrate a steadfast refusal to take bribes of chocolate or other tokens of friendship. Despite this, the German soldiers are not dehumanized as malevolent creatures, a fault many books of the genre fall prey to, but are portrayed as being capable of human kindness and emotion.
The one shortcoming of this book is that it does not acknowledge Norwegian participation in the Nazi cause – there are no traitors or Quislings in this story. Rather, the townspeople present a unified face of resistance against the Germans and the children do not worry about internal threat from their countrymen. In fact, there is really very little concern that anyone will “spill the beans,” though a tone of secrecy presides.
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