In The Reindeer Girl, the second in her Winter Journeys series, prolific British author Holly Webb (Animal Magic series; Emily Feather series) creates a magical intergenerational story likely to appeal to readers of animal stories and historical fiction.
Lotta travels to Norway from the U.S. for her oldemor's (great-grandmother) 90th birthday. When Lotta arrives, the older woman, Erika, starts to spin childhood stories about her youth as a member of the Sami Indigenous culture. She tells Lotta she resembles Erika's younger cousin (also named Lotta), with whom she shared an extraordinary journey. That is, before they were forced to go to school to learn Norwegian and forget their Sami traditions. As Lotta grows sleepy during the birthday party taking place alongside the Little Christmas Eve (December 23) celebration, she falls into a dream. Or is it? She wakes in a reindeer-skin tent, "inside the story" Oldemor had been telling. It is 80 years in the past, and Lotta, with 10-year-old Erika, is in the midst of the spring reindeer migration. The girls leave their families to rescue a mother reindeer and end up in a frightening situation strongly depicted in the Artful Doodlers' double-page illustration of the two girls surrounded by wolves.
Even though Lotta wonders how she could be with the young Erika, readers will almost certainly be swept up in her experiences, with no qualms of their own. With pleasingly retro gray-scale drawings, a glossary and informational pages on reindeer and the Sami people, this short novel is an attractive and pleasing read. --Melinda Greenblatt, freelance book reviewer