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In 1940, a Norwegian freighter brought a part of the gold reserves of Norway, recently conquered by Nazi Germany, into Baltimore Harbor. At the time, the captain of the vessel stated that the gold was smuggled past the Germans by Norwegian children using their sleds. This became the basis of the plot of Snow Treasure, by Marie McSwigan, written in 1942.
Snow Treasure is an historical novel, with invented characters. The complete movement of the Norwegian gold was along many pathways and by various methods – some of it could very well have been smuggled out with the aid of children and their sleds. McSwigan imagines how this part could have been carried out, with the result being a wonderful story. In a nice, realistic touch, the Norwegian children are aided in the final part of their task by a Polish young man who had been forced into the Nazi army. The reading level is early middle school on up. The writing is so clear and vivid that it would make a good choice to be read aloud to a family.
Snow Treasure became very popular partly because it became a choice in the Scholastic Book Club, which were sold in schools across the country. That is how I first came to read it. Marie McSwigan lived a relatively short life. She was born in 1907 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and lived and worked there all her life, first as a journalist and then as a writer of books for children. She died in 1962 from leukemia. Another of her books in the Plumfield Library, All Aboard for Freedom, is based on another true story of Czech patriots stealing a train to escape from Communist oppression in 1951 (see my review).