OPHELIA AND THE MARVELOUS BOY

Eleven-year-old Ophelia faces her fears to help a nameless boy imprisoned in a surreal museum by the evil Snow Queen in this contemporary fairy tale.

An asthmatic girl who believes in science and eschews fantasy, Ophelia’s curious but admittedly not very brave. Grieving her mother’s recent death, Ophelia arrives in a snowy “foreign city” with her father and sister. While her curator father organizes an exhibition of swords, Ophelia wanders the vast museum until she discovers “The Marvelous Boy,” trapped by the Snow Queen for three centuries in a hidden room. A spell preventing the Snow Queen from killing the boy expires in three days, when he will die and the world will freeze unless Ophelia can free him, locate his magical sword and identify the “One Other” to defeat the Snow Queen. Though she’s unsure she believes the boy’s fantastical story, Ophelia gradually heeds an inner voice urging her to follow her heart. Alternating between Ophelia’s bizarre quest to save the boy and the retelling of his story, the intense plot moves Ophelia beyond grief to fulfill what she realizes is her destiny. Armed with her inhaler, practical Ophelia proves a formidable heroine in a frozen landscape. A well-wrought, poignant and original reworking of Andersen’s “The Snow Queen.” (Fantasy. 8-12)