Fia and the Last Snow Deer
As seen:
By Eilish Fisher and Dermot Flynn
avg rating
2 reviews
WINNER Children’s Book of the Year Senior, Irish Book Awards 2024
WINNER Book of the Year, Children’s Books Ireland Awards 2025
WINNER Ellis Dillon Debut Award *
WINNER Children’s Book of the Year: Poetry, The Week Junior Book Awards 2025
Fia and her snow deer Solas have always had a powerful and unbreakable connection. But as Fia’s village face a seemingly eternal winter, they turn their sights to Solas and an ancient prophecy that promises the return of sunlight and life, if the ultimate sacrifice is made . . .
Refusing to allow the worst to happen, Fia and her cousin Mish run from the village with Solas, seeking out the Deer Mother – the mythical being who wakes the sun at the winter solstice and who might be their only hope.
But the wilderness is harsh and shadows lurk at every turn. Can they make it to the Deer Mother? And, if they do, what choices will Fia face to bring back the sun and save her village?
A powerful and beautiful tale set in snowy pre-historic Ireland, about hope, kindness and the power of friendship, from exceptional new writing talent, Eilish Fisher, brought to life with stunning illustrations from Dermot Flynn.
Praise for Fia and the Last Snow Deer
‘Tender, hopeful and thrillingly wild’ Abi Elphinstone, bestselling author of Sky Song
’A beautiful, lyrical read full of love, hardship and hope . . . I cannot recommend this book highly enough.’ Reading Zone, five star review
‘Visually delicious and lyrically lovely’ Oliver Callen, RTÉ Radio One
‘A stunning debut, which should become a classic, with immediate appeal for fans of writers like Michelle Paver and Abi Elphinstone.’ The Irish Times
‘An otherworldly debut’ Image Magazine
‘Writing and illustration of equal beauty’ Sara Keating, Best Books of 2024 selection, The Irish Times
TweetReviews
This is the kind of middle-grade book that quietly raises the bar.
Fia and the Last Snow Deer reads like an ancient story that has somehow survived intact - passed from mouth to mouth, fire to fire. Spare. Rhythmic. Purposeful. The verse does real work here: it strips the story down to bone and breath, making every line feel intentional. No padding. No over-explaining. Just forward motion through snow and myth.
Fia is fierce without being flattened into a trope. Her bond with Solas - born under the same solstice sky - feels elemental rather than sentimental, and the central conflict lands hard: survival versus love, prophecy versus choice. This isn’t a soft, cosy winter tale. It understands hunger. It understands fear. It understands what it costs to be brave when the adults around you are desperate.
What really got me was the scale. Despite its accessibility, this book feels epic - tribal, mythic, cinematic. You can see it as a film already: the endless white, the moving shadows, the Deer Mother waiting somewhere beyond belief. The illustrations elevate it further, working in quiet partnership with the text rather than competing for attention. Together, they make the book feel like an artefact.
There’s something deeply respectful about how Fisher treats her young readers. She trusts them with ambiguity. With sacrifice. With the idea that hope doesn’t always look the way we expect it to. And that trust pays off.
Beautifully written (using verse) and illustrated. A story of Fia's quest to save her village, with themes of friendship, animals and seasons. Winner of Book of the Year for the KPMG Children's Books Ireland Awards 2025
