Today we acquired a small, fat Christmas tree, in scale with the house and two of the cats, and by the end of tomorrow it should be a lot sparklier. The journey of writing North Child was a long and winding one which included gliding through fjords in Norway, delving into the treacherous beauty of the Arctic and becoming an expert on the intricacies of weaving and mapmaking. I also liked all the additional background detail included in the book, with snippets on map-making, weaving and Nordic/Inuit culture etc, which added an extra layer of interest. Originally published in 2006 and based on a Norwegian folk tale, this is a very accomplished story which deserves the accolades bestowed on it.

In trying to uncover the truth North Child, Rose, unwittingly lets him fall into the hands of the Troll Queen who wants the man hidden under the white fur to be her husband. During the night she is joined in her bed by an unknown visitor – this visitor neither touches or speaks to her, arrives in the dark and is always gone by the morning.

We use Google Analytics to see what pages are most visited, and where in the world visitors are visiting from. I’ve started designing these already and I’m planning to tweak them a little, shape- and detail-wise; samples in progress and looking interesting! To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. The majority of pages are undamaged with some creasing or tearing, and pencil underlining of text, but this is minimal.

But that was weeks ago – and Christmas already seems long gone, although there’s plenty of fresh snow and the mountains are white to ground level. Plus-side being, you get to wear your swatch afterwards; although beware of over-indulging in your swatch-accessory, and then having to play yarn chicken. It also allows for a full view of the relationship between Rose and the White Bear, which is drawn with the grace and beauty befitting the inherent tragedy at the heart of the plot. This time the old Scottish tale of the stolen bairn and the sidh is her inspiration, another female centred story in which a determined mother rescues her baby from the fairies.For me this book transported me right back to my childhood and reading similar fairytale and adventure quest style stories.

When later Rose betrays of the bear, it is her quest to make good the harm she has caused that drives the plot. Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, American Samoa, Andorra, Angola, Anguilla, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan Republic, Belarus, Benin, Bhutan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, British Virgin Islands, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde Islands, Central African Republic, Chad, Channel Islands, Comoros, Cook Islands, Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), Fiji, French Polynesia, Gabon Republic, Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Greenland, Guam, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, India, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kiribati, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Macedonia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mayotte, Micronesia, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nauru, Nepal, Netherlands Antilles, New Caledonia, Niger, Nigeria, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Puerto Rico, Republic of the Congo, Russian Federation, Rwanda, Saint Helena, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, San Marino, Senegal, Serbia, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, Suriname, Svalbard and Jan Mayen, Swaziland, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Togo, Tonga, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Uganda, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Vatican City State, Venezuela, Virgin Islands (U. The compliments are LOVELY and make all the hard work worthwhile, but it’s the requests which are invaluable as they keep me on track and drive forward the design process.The bear takes Rose to a distant castle hidden within a mountain, where each night she is confronted with a mystery. and "Handsomely evoking a landscape filled with castles, trolls, shamans and spellbound princes, the story will exercise its audience's imagination. The heroine of the tale is sacrificed to a White Bear by her superstitious mother, in exchange for the family’s prosperity and to heal her sister Sara. Join our community to get personalised book suggestions, extracts straight to your inbox, 10% off RRPs, and to change children’s lives. And something else kept popping up, although it had never really gone away; thanks to a request from Loch Ness Knit Fest, I began again to teach Waldorf doll-making.