Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy

Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy by Karen Foxlee, 2014.

Ophelia and her older sister Alice are spending the Christmas season in a strange sister, where it constantly snows. Their mother died only about three months before, and they are still struggling with their grief. Their father is an expert on swords, and he has accepted a job helping to set up a special exhibit of swords at a very strange museum. He finds the work fascinating, and he thinks that maybe a temporary change of scene would be good for them all. Alice broods and buries herself in listening to sad music, and Ophelia wanders through the museum, exploring. That’s when Ophelia finds something that turns everything she thinks she knows on its head: she finds a strange boy in a locked room.

When Ophelia speaks to the boy through the keyhole of the room where he’s being held prisoner, he tells her an incredible story. He says that he has come from another land more than 300 years ago, chosen by a protectorate of wizards to deliver a magical sword to the one who will defeat the evil Snow Queen. The Snow Queen is the one who has imprisoned him, and she has taken the sword from him. He doesn’t know where it is now, but he needs Ophelia’s help to escape from the room where he is locked up and find it.

At first, Ophelia refuses to believe the boy’s story. It just sounds too fantastic, like something from the kind of books her mother used to write. Ophelia’s mind works differently. She likes science and things that she can easily classify. Stories about magic and fantasy creatures make her uneasy because she can’t explain them or classify them, like she can creatures from the normal animal kingdom. If her mother was alive, Ophelia could imagine her easily believing everything the boy says, but Ophelia absolutely refuses … at first. However, the boy is so sad and obviously in trouble that Ophelia finds herself trying to help him, even though she doesn’t believe his story.

She follows the boy’s instructions to find the key to the room where he is locked up, encountering magical creatures and the ghosts of girls who were murdered by the Snow Queen to give her power and keep her alive through the centuries. Confronted by these things directly, Ophelia is forced to accept that what the boy has told her is true. Even though she can’t fully explain it, Ophelia must accept that the boy hasn’t aged in 300 years because of a blessing that he received from a magical owl who ate one of his fingers, that the boy doesn’t have a name because the wizards have taken it from him so they can recall him from this world to the one he came from, and that they must find the magical sword before the magical Wintertide clock in the museum chimes on Christmas Eve. If they can’t find the sword before the Wintertide clock chimes, the Snow Queen will take over the world, and all will be death and sadness.

Along the way, Ophelia struggles with her feelings about her mother’s death, which are intertwined with her feelings about the unexplainable and fantastic. However, her mother isn’t completely gone, and in this magical, haunted museum, Ophelia begins to hear her mother’s voice, whispering advice and encouragement to her. Her father and Alice are both hiding from their sadness and the memory of Ophelia’s mother. Ophelia’s father has buried himself in his work, and Alice has become vain, moody, and self-absorbed. Ophelia realizes that they need to accept their sadness in order to heal and move on. Meanwhile, Ophelia also needs to confront her own self-doubts and skepticism to fully accept the role that she must play in this story.

As the clock ticks onward, Ophelia must rescue Alice from the clutches of the Snow Queen, who has marked her as her next victim. She must also convince her father of the need to find the magical sword and its importance before the marvelous boy fades away and all is lost.

My Reaction and Spoilers

This is a fascinating twist on the traditional fairy tale of The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen. All through the story, as Ophelia is helping the mysterious boy, he tells her the story of how he was chosen to be the one to deliver the sword and the story of his journey to this place and his imprisonment. He doesn’t have all the answers for Ophelia. Although the wizards who sent him gave him some instructions, he doesn’t know everything that’s been happening or that will happen, but he knows that if he follows the wizards’ instructions and guides Ophelia as best he can, all will be well in the end.

Ophelia’s journey is also one of acceptance, learning to accept that there are things she doesn’t fully understand, learning to accept her mother’s death, and learning to accept her own roles and responsibilities in life. Although she doubts herself at first, as a small, asthmatic girl who still misses her mother, she is capable of more than she thinks, and moving forward with faith and hope will help her to make things right in the end. Her father and sister also learn to put aside their own grief and concerns to be there for Ophelia when she needs them, uniting them as a family.

There are some parts of the story that aren’t fully resolved at the end, which might leave room for Ophelia and the boy to meet again someday. We never learn the boy’s name, and we don’t know exactly where he’s going when the wizards call him home. Hopefully, he will be reunited with his own mother, although we don’t know how much time has passed in his world since he left over 300 years ago. Readers can speculate, and I prefer to think that this is a happy ending.

This is a dark fantasy with child deaths (the ghost girls Ophelia meets) and attempted child murder (Alice), but the darknesss helps to establish the true evil of the Snow Queen, who has been masquerading as an employee of the museum. The Snow Queen flatters Alice and gives her presents to win her trust, as she has done with other girls before her. Only Ophelia and the boy see her true nature until both Alice and the girls’ father see her about to attack Ophelia and understand that she is a real threat. Like all the best villains, the Snow Queen is irredeemably evil, and her defeat improves the lives of everyone. It’s the struggle to defeat evil that brings out the best in the other characters and helps them to resolve their earlier doubts and problems.

The museum is a magical place that opens the imaginations of readers. The boy explains that it used to be the palace of the city before the Snow Queen turned it into this bizarre museum. There are the obvious magical elements, but also, there are the strange exhibits that would delight real children to explore. Some of the exhibits are obviously fascinating ones, like the dinosaurs, swords, and dollhouses, but there are the inexplicable ones, like a room full of old telephones and broken toys. Real museums are well-organized, well-lit, and with age-appropriate educational activities provided, but in this strange place, readers can imagine anything lurking in the dark corners of the museum and surprises at every turn. It’s dark and scary but magical and wonderful at the same time, and readers will delight in exploring along with the characters!