On Snowden Mountain

Gr 6-8–Watt’s novel gently portrays a family struggling with depression during a time when such things were not well understood or discussed. The novel opens with twelve-year-old Ellen seeking help from an estranged aunt who lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, far away from Baltimore where Ellen and her mother are barely surviving. Ellen’s mother has fallen into a deep depression ever since her father left to “beat the hell out of Adolf Hitler.” Aunt Pearl whisks them away to Snowden Mountain, much to Ellen’s dismay, where Ellen will attend school in a defunct church with other children from the village. There she decides she will not make friends and will not be happy while she harbors fears of depression creeping into her own state of mind, like her mother’s. Ellen eventually forms an unlikely friendship with an outcast who is battling his own family demons, and begins to trust the adults offering love and support. Watts’s characters are thoughtful and well developed; readers will understand Ellen’s feelings as she tries to sort through her family crisis. The villagers in Snowden believe Ellen’s mother is frail and sad and do not comprehend the serious effects of depression on the whole family. Students who have personal experience with depression themselves or with loved ones will appreciate Watt’s subtle depiction and the patience with which it is handled in the story.