Snow sounds An onomatopoeic story

David Johnson, 1951 Feb. 18-

Book - 2006

A nearly-wordless book in which a young boy, eager to reach a much-anticipated holiday party on time, listens to the sounds of the shovels, snow plow, and other equipment used to clear his way.

Saved in:

Children's Room Show me where

jE/Johnson
1 / 1 copies available
Location Call Number   Status
Children's Room jE/Johnson Checked In
Subjects
Genres
Picture books
Published
Boston : Houghton Mifflin Company 2006.
Language
English
Main Author
David Johnson, 1951 Feb. 18- (-)
Physical Description
unpaged : col. ill
ISBN
9780618473106
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

Every word is a sound in illustrator Johnson's authorial debut, and the pictures tell the story. In his signature style of frosted, crystalline textures and muted tones, Johnson's art shows a young boy waking on a snowy morning and preparing for school, while snow is being cleared away outside. The fun comes from the onomatopoeic text: the snore and purr of the cozy first image, showing the sleeping boy and his cat, to the jingly clink vroom of the closing scene's school bus. Johnson uses visual techniques to amplify each word's meaning. The predawn hush appears in dove-gray letters that almost fade into the background, while later, after everyone is awake, the school bus' honk is printed in sharp red. This book has a quiet charm that will span age groups. Preschoolers will simply enjoy repeating the sounds and inventing their own, while teachers may want this for early elementary poetry units. Pair the book with Kate Banks' The Great Blue House (2005), which also celebrates sounds and the words that describe them. --Gillian Engberg Copyright 2006 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by School Library Journal Review

PreS-Gr 2-One way to describe this offering is to call it a wordless story with a soundtrack. Johnson switches between interior and exterior scenes to create a visual narrative: a youngster rises and gets dressed; a snowplow clears the road to his rural house; the boy shovels the walk while his father cleans the driveway; the school bus arrives; his mother rushes out with a forgotten present; the smiling child sits onboard anticipating a holiday celebration. Full-bleed watercolor spreads capture the light of a wintry morning perfectly: a deep gray-blue predominates, shot through with a translucent mottled white and accented with small focused patches of vibrant color-a yawning mouth, the date (December 23) circled on a calendar, the gift wrapped in red paper. Descriptive words accompany the artwork, from the boy's quiet "Snore" and the predawn "hush," to the snowplow's "Crash Crush Clank" and the bus's "Jingly Clink." This accomplished offering has a variety of uses and will appeal to a wide age range: younger children will enjoy the action, while those with more developed narrative skills will comb through the pages to create and re-create the story. Although the book's complete aesthetic delight might best be appreciated by children from snowy climes, most libraries will value this unique and intriguing title.-Nina Lindsay, Oakland Public Library, CA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review

(Primary) A boy wakes up on the last day of school before Christmas break and hears a snow plow coming down the country road: ""Crash / Crush / Clank."" With a spare text consisting almost entirely of onomatopoeic words, Johnson has created an aural portrait of a snowy day-the perfect companion to Lynne Rae Perkins's Snow Music. His sandy-textured full-spread paintings use thin draftsman-careful lines and broad sweeps of subtly shaded color that move from sleepy grays and blues to warmer pastels as the sun rises. Using a variety of sizes, colors, typefaces, and curves, each word is carefully nestled into the art. After breakfast (""Glug / Glug / Crackle""), the boy shovels the steps (""Scoop / Scrape"") just in time for the school bus's arrival (""HONK HONK""). (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

It's December 23, and a young boy is sleeping. Next to his bed is a special present. Outside his house, through the hush of an icy, blue morning, something is happening: Snow is falling! As the boy awakens, a snowplow moves by his house, clearing the way for the boy to go to school and making evocative sounds--swooshes and crashes and beeps. There are sounds inside the warm, golden-hued house too--crinkles and flushes, crackles and meows. The boy does some shoveling, making noises similar to that of the plow, and then with a honk, the bus arrives. It's time to go to school, but not without his present--a toy snowplow. Beautifully rendered ink-and-watercolor illustrations with an alternating pallet perfectly capture the shimmering snow and the house's cozy interior. The youngest children will delight in the simplicity and familiarity of the story, while older children will be fascinated by the use of onomatopoeia (a handy definition appears on the back of the book). A wonderful introduction to the world of poetic language. (Picture book. 4-8) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.