Sleuthing the Snow Queen: Classroom Project

I recently read Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy. Karen Foxlee's middle grade fantasy novel centers on the myth of the Snow Queen. This mythologem can be traced far back in our history, sometimes as an ice queen or ice princess.

A fascinating project for kids would be to take this image and trace it back. We find it in recent literature, like the White Witch in Narnia, and of course Hans Christian Anderson's Snow Queen. And of course Disney...with its liberal reinterpreting with all things marketing in mind.

Those stories have their antecedents in older mythologies. Like the Norse Goddesses Skadi or Hel. Robert Graves' The White Goddess also explores the myth.

I'm no scholar, but I've read enough of Carl Jung's work to recognize a powerful archetype in the Snow Queen. And powerful archetypes ignite imagination. So turn your students loose into an exploration of the Snow Queen archetype. Then have them write their own version.