A Really Cold Fever Dream: Using Fantasy and Feelings to Make Sense of Our World, a guest post by Meera Trehan

It started with a dream. A wake-with-a-jolt, heart-in-your throat dream. I had been walking in a glittering snowfield, on a day so bright it was hard to know where the land ended and the sky began. For a moment, I’d looked away. And in that moment, the child I was with had disappeared, falling in the snow. Yet, as I frantically searched, the surface of the snow remained perfectly smooth. No footprints, no clues. I dug and dug. My fingers were raw and my throat was hoarse, but the snow yielded nothing.
Even after I woke up, even after days passed, the dream stayed with me. I had to make sense of it. And the only way I knew how to do that was by asking questions: Where was this land of perfect snow? And how did it get that way? And most of all, what happened to the child who fell in the snow? Slowly, I came up with one set of answers, and then another, and then another. Magicians turned into scientists, a toddler turned into a middle school girl, a bustling kingdom turned deserted, a magic book turned into… well, a different type of magic book.
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While those questions addressed the surface of the dream, they were also reaching for the feeling of the dream. Because what really haunted me, was that—the emotions. And those emotions—fear, guilt, but also wonder—were asking a deeper, more universal set of questions: How do you forgive your worst mistakes? What is the cost of perfection and status-seeking? What makes a person matter? And because the pandemic hit as I was starting to write the story in earnest, another set of questions emerged: How do you go forward when the world you took for granted has been wrenched away? How do you survive the isolation? How do you get your old life back, or is that even the goal?
Unlike many writers, I didn’t grow up dreaming of writing books. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I didn’t think it was something I could do. I tinkered away at poems, but actual books? No way. I knew who my favorite writers were (my shock at finding out Carolyn Keene, the author of the Nancy Drew mysteries, was not just one person!). But I imagined them working away on a different plane of existence, unreachable by me.

Even though I didn’t consider myself a writer, I was an avid reader as soon as I could read. I loved falling into a book, so wrapped up in a story, I could barely even process everything I felt until it was over. I still do. And I know I’m not alone in this. It’s the emotion—the humor, the tension, and most of all, the empathy, that gets a kid invested in a story. Even when a kid can’t remember a specific line of description or the intricacies of a plot point, they know the vibe of the characters, the feel of the story. While we all appreciate a good story with twists and turns, it’s the emotion that ultimately gives it meaning. That is true whether the story takes place in a fantasy world or our world—or, as in Snow, both.
And so I started with a lonely Princess in a misty kingdom called Mistmir, endlessly digging scientifically-modified, self-replenishing snow. To her surprise, a foot suddenly come through the mists. It turns out the foot belongs to Ela, an ordinary Indian-American girl from our world—well, ordinary except for the fact that Ela is the girl the Princess thought she lost long ago. The Princess is sure if she can just keep…maybe trap?…Ela in Mistmir, the Princess will have the proof she needs to restore her kingdom. Meanwhile, Ela recognizes the Princess from a book her mother keeps hidden away and is certain the Princess is the key to unlocking family secrets. Together, they embark on a journey filled with vicious mechanical hounds (and one rather nice one who unfortunately blurts things out at inopportune moments), delicious treats, a strange sort of dizziness that seems to strike out of nowhere, and of course, unrelentingly perfect Snow.

Drafting this story during the pandemic, it seemed any literal words I used to discuss the loneliness, the fear, the uncertainty were dwarfed by the actual reality of the situation. But by living in a deserted kingdom with an isolated Princess, a power-hungry King, and seven-sided self-replenishing Snow, I could access a place that somehow mirrored the emotions I was experiencing. And I could find my way to answering the questions that got me started writing this story in the first place.
Snow is about many things: family and friendship, science and migration, status and power. My hope is that each reader will find their own point of entry and their own meaning in the story. But if there’s one takeaway I’d like all readers to get, it’s that they matter, just as they are, and they deserve to follow their dreams. After all, who knows where they might take them?
Meet the author

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Meera grew up in Virginia, just outside Washington, DC. As a kid, she read as much as she could, wrote and memorized poems, and spent many hours at her local public library, eventually volunteering there.
She attended the University of Virginia and Stanford Law School. After practicing public interest law for over a decade, she turned to creative writing. Her debut novel, The View from the Very Best House in Town came out in 2022. It was named an Amazon Editor’s Pick, a 2023 CCBC Choice, a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection and was published in multiple countries. Her next novel, Snow, has also been named a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard.
Meera loves to connect with readers and writers. She serves on the Board of the Writer’s Center and teaches at the Highlights Foundation.
Online:
Website: meeratrehan.com
Instagram: www.instagram.com/meera.trehan/
About Snow
In this beautiful and haunting fantasy, an imprisoned princess needs the help of a girl from the modern world to undo a wish gone wrong and save her snowy kingdom.
Every day, a lonely princess digs through the snow in search of a way to undo the terrible wish she made—one that has left her with an empty kingdom and a heart full of guilt. But one day, a mysterious girl named Ela tumbles through the kingdom’s protective mist barrier. The princess is determined to bring Ela to her father, the harsh king, as proof that her wish can be undone, even if it means keeping Ela against her will. Meanwhile, Ela, who has grown up a regular kid in what she thought was a regular Indian American family, is shocked to discover she’s stumbled upon the very snow princess whose picture graces the cover of the locked book that Ela’s mom won’t let her read. In this elegant fantasy, author Meera Trehan conjures a story of loneliness, family secrets, science, and remarkable snow as two girls from different worlds come together to set things right—and maybe even become friends.
ISBN-13: 9781536219258
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Publication date: 01/21/2025
Age Range: 8 – 12 Years
Filed under: Guest Post

About Amanda MacGregor
Amanda MacGregor works in an elementary library, loves dogs, and can be found on BlueSky at @amandamacgregor.bsky.social.
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