Dancing+Through+The+Snow


 * by Jean Little

Booktalk**

Min comes home to her foster parent's house one week before Christmas to find that her bed has been stripped and her few belongings have been stuffed into the old battered suitcase and large backpack that she first arrived with. Her room is bare. Angry and with a heart filled with sadness and despair, she realizes that once again she doesn't have a home. In her mind, she hears the taunts of Laird a bully at school calling her "Litter-bin-Min".

Min has been living in foster care ever since she was three years old. Memories of her former life are few and not pleasant. She recalls Bruno, the man who would lock her in a dark closet. Then one day the woman (was it her mother?) took her to the Exhibition grounds. In the washroom, she cut off all of her hair. She was found wandering, hours later, and taken to meet Mrs. Willis at the Children's Aid Society. Since then she has been bounced from one foster home to the next but never just before Christmas.

Her foster mother, Enid Bangs, takes her to see Mrs. Willis and Min must endure the conversation between the two of them as Enid insists that she can no longer care for her. "She's hard. You can never tell what she is thinking… and she's sly. We can't get close to her no matter what we do… Heartless, I tell you… It's as if there is nobody living inside the girl."

Dr. Jessica Hart, a friend of Mrs. Willis and an acquaintance from when Min was ill and placed in the hospital, rescues her. Jessica takes Min home with her that night and they begin a friendship that allows Min a small glimmer of hope. When she and Tobias, Jessica's godson, find a starving, almost frozen, abused little dog, she is determined to help it survive and get better. The similarities between their two situations are apparent, even to Min. She gradually wins the little dog over with patience and love but can she trust the love that Jessica shows to her?