Children's book: At the Back of the North Wind

Overview
"At the Back of the North Wind" is a lyrical fantasy by George MacDonald, first published in 1871. The story centers on a compassionate, dreamy boy named Diamond (often called "the little boy") and his extraordinary relationship with the personified North Wind, who appears as a mysterious, beautiful woman. The book blends childlike wonder, moral instruction, and metaphysical speculation into a sequence of episodes that move between the everyday and the supernatural.
MacDonald fashions a narrative that is both fairy tale and allegory, where ordinary life encounters a force that rearranges fate and meaning. The North Wind both comforts and disturbs; she carries the child into strange lands and into moments that expose suffering, death, and redemption. The result is a tale that reads like a parable about compassion, obedience, and the hidden purposes behind apparent misfortune.

Plot Summary
The story begins with Diamond's gentle, poor family and his longing for the North Wind, whom he believes lives "at the back of the north wind." One night the Wind appears and takes him on nightly journeys. These excursions are episodic: Diamond witnesses the Wind calming storms, carrying lost things, and freeing the souls of the dead. He sees suffering alleviated and, at times, causes of sorrow that bewilder him.
A central thread follows Diamond's friendship with the Wind as she reaches into towns and homes, sometimes causing destruction that paradoxically leads to higher goods. Diamond's presence offers a child's innocence and charity as he comforts the dying and consoles the bereaved. The narrative reaches an emotional height when Diamond falls ill; the Wind carries him gently through death's threshold, revealing a transcendent order and finally restoring him, transformed, in a way that suggests spiritual awakening rather than mere survival.

Main Characters
Diamond is an emblem of purity, curiosity, and compassion. His sympathetic nature allows him to engage with suffering without bitterness. He functions as a moral center whose small acts of kindness register as significant against the backdrop of larger, often inscrutable forces.
The North Wind is at once force of nature, muse, and angelic guide. She is aloof and majestic, sometimes harsh in her work but always carrying a purpose beyond human comprehension. Other characters, family members, townspeople, and those Diamond meets in his travels, are sketched to highlight moral contrasts: selfishness, grief, faith, and charity.

Themes and Symbolism
A dominant theme is the reconciliation of suffering with divine or moral order. The Wind's interventions suggest that what appears as cruelty or randomness may serve a benevolent design. Death is not simply an end but a passage that, in MacDonald's telling, reveals mercy and meaning.
Another theme is the sanctity of childlike perception. Diamond's openness allows him to understand and accept truths that adults resist. The North Wind itself symbolizes the mysterious agency that moves history and nature, capricious to human eyes but purposeful in a cosmic sense.

Style and Tone
MacDonald's prose mixes pastoral description, poetic reverie, and direct moral reflection. Sentences often carry a musical or sermon-like cadence, with vivid imagery that makes the Wind's movements feel elemental and intimate at once. The tone ranges from tender to somber, sustaining a sense of awe and moral gravity.
The book is episodic rather than tightly plotted, with each chapter offering a miniature parable. This structure complements the allegorical aims and preserves an atmosphere of wonder appropriate to a children's tale that also addresses adult concerns.

Reception and Legacy
"At the Back of the North Wind" has been influential on later fantasy writers and on readers who value literature that treats children as moral agents. Critics and admirers highlight its imaginative reach and spiritual depth, even when its moral certainties and occasional didacticism divide opinion. The work endures as a classic of Victorian fantasy, notable for its courageous engagement with sorrow, hope, and the possibility that unseen forces guide human life.