Faith-inspired fairy tale

Sabella Jenkins knows what it’s like to be different—so much so that her adopted parents decide to hide her away from their coal mining town for fear of her being burned as a witch. Yet Sabella is not a witch but a “Springborn” girl with silvery gray antlers sprouting from her head.

Carrie Anne Noble is a Christian and award-winning author known for her melodic prose and soulful characters. Her latest book, The Springborn (Oliver-Heber Books, 408 pp.), is a fairy tale set in 1886 in Miners Ridge, Pa., and Noble brings a unique twist of magical realism in this sweet historical romance about being unashamed of who you were made to be.

Sabella’s fearful and abusive parents insist her antlers be sawed off and buried in the woods, but handsome and gregarious Calder Hadrian—another Springborn with hidden moth wings—shows up on her doorstep, and the course of her life changes forever.

While Sabella struggles to trust Calder and the other Springborn she meets, the lidded basket in which she was found as a baby suddenly produces another child with the ability to age years overnight. Sabella attempts to find a cure for this new child’s uncanny aging, but then a real witch threatens the lives of the other Springborn children. Calder and Sabella must learn to work together or risk losing their fragile family.

Like all good fairy tales, there is a dark side to Sabella’s world. In The Springborn, that darkness is the kind of fundamentalist church community commonly found in coal mining towns of the late 1800s. Even though this is general market fiction, Christian readers won’t miss the subtle themes of Christian freedom and acceptance in response to a culture afraid of the unknown. As Sabella—rejected by society for her odd yet captivating antlers—leaves the confines of her home, she soon finds a new family that will embrace her for who she was created to be.

Noble admits she found herself in the pages of this story. “I was processing the feelings of not fitting in, especially with regards to being an artistic person in a rural, conservative area, and the wonder and importance of finding community with other creative believers, and learning to celebrate and use my gifts with their support.”

With themes of found family and learning to trust after abuse, The Springborn is a tale written for all those who have ever felt as though they don’t fit in.