Letter to me: a 6-years-old girl from Yakutiya.
My family lived in the village called Novii (English: new). It was located in Siberian part of Russia, Sakha (Yakutiya) Republic. Winter usually began in September and snow began to melt in May. Wind did not prevail in that region. Therefore, when temperature dropped below 50 Celsius, it still was bearable to walk outside.
After exiting a warm house heated with Russian stove (type of a masonry stove), freshness of crispy air would take a breath away, and eyes would suddenly be blinded by mountains of snow. Every house in the village would look like a white snowy tower.
The night would cover the village around 5 p.m. When the first stars would appear above the roofs, and bright moon navigated the villagers to their homes, snowflakes as diamonds began its shimmering dance in the moonlight.
I remember, in the kindergarten we would shovel for our “diamonds.” Under layers of snow, we would find crystallized snowflakes. They resembled gem stones for us — children. I would look at those sparkly gems in the sun while they slowly melted in my tiny mittens.
Our kindergarten teachers always warned us, before we would go for a walk, do not stick tongues to the metal poll. They would say that something bad may happen. Most kids behaved well. The only thing they would stick their tongues to was snow. Oh, we loved eating snow. We would imagine that it’s sugar and somehow the imagination reflected on a snow’s flavor.
Only once a child did stick a tongue to the metal poll. I remember a lot of screaming, and faces of panicked teachers. All the children immediately were sent inside.The loud screams of the child stayed in children’s memories. Nobody ever, at least while I was in the kindergarten, made an attempt to even come near by the metal poll during the winter.
Wow, you really manage to paint a beautiful picture of your village for the reader. I can imagine a bunch of children out in the snow, with one to the side gazing at their mittens in awe of melting snowflakes. I think you did a great job capturing how wondrous the world is to a child.
There are some grammatical errors present that I’d be happy to point out if needed, but aside from that, I think you’re off to a great start. This introduction is captivating and I’m definitely interested in learning more about this faraway place.
I completely agree with k.webb. This excerpt is just so beautiful, and it’s engaging, too, since I think we can all relate to the childhood innocence of being fascinated by snow.
A few comments: You describe the Russian stove as “a type of masonry stove,” but I’d like to hear a little more; it’d fit in well with the rest of the imagery. You can also omit the parentheses “(English: new)” and incorporate that into the sentence.
I love the story about the child who licked the pole (please note that the spelling here is critical; “pole” is the version you’re looking for); it’s so vivid, and I actually felt myself smiling as I read it. Check for grammatical errors throughout the piece, but once again, your narrative style is beautiful and thrilling, and I genuinely look forward to the next installment!
I really enjoyed reading this excerpt. I loved how it grabs the reader from the first paragraph, it makes you wonder what is yet to come. I like how descriptive your excerpt is and how you provided the reader with a bit of background information. I thought that was helpful and I thought this piece flowed very nicely. I also found this piece easy to read as well, I can’t wait to read more.