Another excellent story by Sandra Dallas. ( )

This was a really sad book, but I actually enjoyed it. While you read this book and learn all about the children in this town and their lives, you have no idea which children are going to be killed in the avalanche. I didn't think I could even read this, but I got intrigued by this story and actually finished it and was able to give it 4 stars. ( )

In 1920, an avalanche hit the mining town of Swandyke, Colorado, just as school let out. There were kids on the street, just heading home, as the snow came tumbling down... The book starts by letting us know this, then backs up to find out about the lives of some of the parents (and one grandparent) of those children. Then, the book leads up to the avalanche itself.

There was no historical/author’s note, so I had to look this up to see if it really happened. It appears that Swandyke was a real town; now it’s a ghost town with some items and buildings, but I couldn’t find any mention of an avalanche that buried children there. However, this is a really good story. It was easy to get the characters mixed up a bit, as there were so many, and with one chapter on each family’s history, it took a minute when they were mentioned again to remember who was who. Even still, I enjoyed all of those families’ stories, though one stood out a bit more than the others for me (the black man working at the mine who had a young daughter). ( )

Whiter Than Snow opens in 1920, on a spring afternoon in Swandyke, a small town near Colorado’s Tenmile Range. Just moments after four o’clock, a large split of snow separates from Jubilee Mountain high above the tiny hamlet and hurtles down the rocky slope, enveloping everything in its path including nine young children who are walking home from school. But only four children survive. Whiter Than Snow takes you into the lives of each of these families: There’s Lucy and Dolly Patch—two sisters, long estranged by a shocking betrayal. Joe Cobb, Swandyke’s only black resident, whose love for his daughter Jane forces him to flee Alabama. There’s Grace Foote, who hides secrets and scandal that belies her genteel façade. And Minder Evans, a civil war veteran who considers his cowardice his greatest sin. Finally, there’s Essie Snowball, born Esther Schnable to conservative Jewish parents, but who now works as a prostitute and hides her child’s parentage from all the world.

Ultimately, each story serves as an allegory to the greater theme of the novel by echoing that fate, chance, and perhaps even divine providence, are all woven into the fabric of everyday life. And it’s through each character’s defining moment in his or her past that the reader understands how each child has become its parent’s purpose for living. In the end, it’s a novel of forgiveness, redemption, survival, faith and family. ( )

Swandyke is a mining town high in the Rocky Mountains overlooking Denver in the early part of the twentieth century. It is a small town, dominated by the Fourth of July mine and inhabited by people just as every bit as dirty and poor as the town itself . There are the estranged Patch sisters, Lucy and Dolly; Minder Evans, a Civil War veteran haunted by his past; Grace Foote, the aloof wife to the mining superintendant; Joe Cobb, the only Negro in town running from the fear and hatred of the post-Civil War era South; and Essie Snowball, a prostitute desperately trying to buy a new future for herself and her daughter. It is in Swandyke where tragedy strikes, bringing these people together, bringing both pain and redemption.

Sandra Dallas wrote a very readable novel. I truly came to care about the Swandyke and characters. I wanted to know what brought them to Swandyke and what would happen to them when push came to shove. There wasn't an unlikable person in the bunch, despite their many flaws. However it wasn't exceptional. The story could have easily fallen into the melodramatic and corny. I'm still not sure it didn't. Regardless, I enjoyed myself when I read the novel and sometimes that's all you need. It would make a great read for one of those lazy days when you don't have anything better to do then cozy up with a book in one hand and warm drink in the other. ( )