Review by New York Times Review
MY 3-YEAR OLD daughter knows nothing of snow. She'd only just turned 2 when we moved to Rome - a spellbinding city in many ways but one where snow rarely falls. (In 2012, a blizzard ground the city to a halt, and Romans are still talking about it with wide-eyed amazement.) My daughter can't possibly remember the winters of her New York babyhood, but suddenly, about six months ago, she began to ask me when the snow would come. When would we play in the snow? Where was the snow hiding? I could only guess she was exhibiting a child's sixth sense for wonder: Snow is a portal out of the ordinary churn of life, forcing even grownups to go out and play. Coincidentally, and luckily for my daughter, three new picture books herald the majesty of snow, bringing its almost magically transformative power to any child who yearns for it. In "Big Snow," written and illustrated by Jonathan Bean, another child anxious to see a winter wonderland asks his mother again and again about the impending blizzard. Amazingly, she persuades her son - named David - to help her do chores around the house as he waits for the predicted snowfall. But something about each task (the fine, white flour used for cookie dough, the white sheets of his newly made bed) reminds the boy of what might be happening outside, and he can't resist dashing out to take a look. With each trip to the backyard, the weather gives David just a bit more of what he has been eagerly awaiting - until finally the flakes have accumulated so much they are "covering everything, white and cool." As with the hero of "The Snowy Day," by Ezra Jack Keats (1962), David, who like Keats's main character, Peter, is African-American, goes to sleep and dreams of snow. Peter, however, imagined the snow disappearing, while David's dream takes him in another direction. Here, the snow becomes a hapless and threatening force, howling and bursting through doors, piling up in drifts inside the tidy suburban home. (Apparently hellbent on cleaning even in her son's dreams, David's mother is shown pushing a vacuum through piles of snow, a steely look of determination in her eyes.) This fantastical moment ends as abruptly as it began when the boy's father arrives, stomping his shoes in the doorway and waking his son from his nightmare. We are suddenly and safely returned to the consoling home life - portrayed in happy and straightforward watercolor pictures - that has become the signature of Bean's work. It's a nifty trick: The brief and unexpected peril of the dream makes the long-anticipated moment when the family bundles up and goes out to enjoy the storm all the cozier. In his first picture book, "When It Snows," the British illustrator Richard Collingridge dives headlong into a fantasy of the season, showing it to be a vast and mountainous expanse of white, both eerie and enchanting. The story starts by explaining that "when it snows ... all the cars are stuck and the train disappears," but this wintry world looks as if the downfall has obliterated all traces of mundane existence. What's left is a Narnia-like land, with a giant snowman and the Queen of the Poles, a towering woman who wears a horned crown and lives in a gloomy forest with thousands of elves. A small, unnamed and apparently fearless boy, accompanied by his teddy bear, leads us through this journey - the illustrations initially luminous but growing continuously darker as he delves deeper into this mysterious world. But just as it seems the boy may be traveling into a somber fairy tale, the story twists sharply back to reality and the little boy finds himself reading the very same Collingridge book by the fire. Unfortunately, this self-referential ending feels abrupt and at odds with the rest of the book. "Winter Is for Snow" is a tale of two siblings - a brother who loves the icy flakes pouring down outside their apartment window and a sister who is cranky about it all - by the prolific children's book author and illustrator Robert Neubecker. These two start out like De si and Lucy, disagreeing about everything. "Winter is for fabulous! Winter is for snow," sings out the copper-haired brother. "Winter is for lots of clothes! And I don't want to go," deadpans his younger copper-haired sister. (Her blasphemy recalls a Carl Reiner quip: "A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water.") These small urbanites argue back and forth in delightful, singsong rhyme, the brother joyfully throwing his arms up and kicking his legs out to add emphasis to his argument, which grows more elaborate with every page. "Winter is for glaciers, with walruses and seals," he pleads, "diving in the icy sea for scaly, fishy meals." Slowly but surely, he manages to dress his sister and edge her outdoors into a cityscape colorfully and whimsically depicted with a park jam-packed with people frolicking in an excellent variety of snow hats. Though she has resisted her brother's - and winter's - charms, even turning her attention to a beeping electronic device (at which point lesser brothers would have given up), we eventually see him pulling her along on a sled. And then, a little too easily, she finally changes her mind, declaring, "I love snow!" It's nice to see her hardworking brother win the argument and to see them both out enjoying the fresh air. But she was such a good curmudgeon - I missed her old self a little when she was gone. NELL CASEY is the editor of "The Journals of Spalding Gray" and "Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression." She is a former books columnist for Cookie magazine.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [December 22, 2013]
Review by Booklist Review
Dressed in snow jacket, scarf, and woolly hat, David disconsolately drags his sled up and down his snowless backyard. When Mom tries to distract him by asking him to help bake cookies, he scatters sugar and flour all over the table and floor, creating an indoor snowstorm. Other helping tasks (soapsuds in the bathtub, changing white sheets) produce only more reminders of the anticipated snowfall. When David naps and dreams of a very big snow, howling through the doors and piling in drifts inside the house, Mom desperately tries to vacuum it up. Finally, Dad arrives home, and all three bundle up and trudge outdoors to check on the real blizzard. Cookies and hot chocolate end a totally satisfying day. Bean (Building Our House, 2013) uses soft pastels to depict a warm kitchen, loving parents, and a yellow cat, whose presence can be spied on every page. The detailed outdoor scenes of houses, birds, people, and warmly lit windows convey a neighborhood community waiting for a December storm to arrive.--Gepson, Lolly Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
A "big snow" can't arrive soon enough for a boy named David. Mom tries to keep him occupied with household tasks, but everything he does only makes him think about what's happening outside (flour, bathroom cleaner suds, and white bed sheets all remind him of accumulation). When it's clear that David's help is actually creating more mess, Mom suggests a nap-and David, in turn, dreams that the snow has turned into a vengeful, invasive blizzard: "[W]ild wind pushed flakes through window cracks.... [I]t roared and blew open all the doors and piled drifts around the house." Never mind being careful what you wish for-how are David and his mother going to clean up this huge mess? This is another terrific offering from Bean (Building Our House); his subtly rhythmic prose and elegant, astute watercolors hit just the right notes of comedy, suspense, and fantasy. The dream scene of Mom vacuuming the snow out of her drift-covered living room is at once deeply silly and a tribute to the indomitable will of mothers everywhere. Ages 3-6. Agent: Elizabeth Harding, Curtis Brown. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 1-This delightful picture book charts a child's excitement over the imminent arrival of a snowstorm. Readers first see David standing in his yard, staring anxiously at the sky. There's no snow yet, but the youngster waits bundled in coat, scarf, and hat with his red sled in tow. Inside the house, his mom peers at him through the curtains. She attempts to distract him with chores: cookie baking, bathroom cleaning, changing sheets in the guest bedroom. Each task, however, holds his attention for just a few minutes, then: "the flour, white and fine, made David think of snow." The suds and new sheets evoke a similar response, and, each time, David dashes out to check the weather. Mom patiently suggests David eat lunch and take a nap. He dreams that the storm piles drifts throughout the house as he and his mother struggle to push them back outside. Bean's storytelling builds a delicious contrast between the cozy indoor scenes and neighborhood panoramas that depict the storm's arrival. These parallel David's emotions: impatience, excitement, and wonder. Bean's well-executed illustrations capture the tenderness of David's family, and add appealing details, such as the cat that wanders in and out. David is a worthy, small-town successor to Peter from Ezra Jack Keats's classic The Snowy Day. This wonderful tale begs to be read aloud.-Marilyn Taniguchi, Beverly Hills Public Library, CA (c) Copyright 2013. 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
Its mid-December. Mom is cooking and cleaning in preparation for houseguests, and David is waiting for the first big snow of the season. He continually asks his mother questions about the predicted snow, and she responds to each question with the suggestion that he help her with her housework while he waits to find out about it. But everything they do together (adding flour to the cookie dough, spraying foaming shower cleaner, putting white sheets on a bed) reminds David of snow and sends him outside to check on the weather. At naptime, he has a wild dream about a snow so big it comes drifting into his house and, upon awakening, he finds that there has indeed been big snow, though its nothing a plow and shovel cant handle. Beans superbly patterned text builds anticipation, and his pen-and-ink and watercolor illustrations make clear links between what is going on in Davids imagination and what is happening out in the real world. The warm illustrations showing brown-skinned Davids cozy home provide a nice contrast to the occasional wordless double-page spread showing the outdoors, with an ever-increasing amount of snow. Young readers are sure to identify with Davids longing and excitement. kathleen t. horning (c) Copyright 2013. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
David tries to help his mother with Christmas housecleaning, but his mind swirls with thoughts of the big snow predicted to fall that afternoon. The flour he measures for cookies reminds him of a snow's initial, light dusting; soapy bubbles seem like fat flakes piling up; clean bed linens appear as white-blanketed pastures. With each association, the boy abruptly abandons his task to go "check the weather." Children and caregivers will recognize the familiar scene--how many times have little helpers gone missing? They'll also hear the echoes of their own conversations, of hopeful questions about a snow's arrival and accumulation, breathlessly posed again and again. These repeated behaviors, the cycle of questions and answers and a boy's coming and going, structure this seasonal story and capture the cozy monotony of a domestic day indoors. Sandy browns and lemony yellows make the warmth of David's home palpable--even its smells and rhythms, almost. As the snowstorm gets bigger and bigger, readers survey its progress by noting changes on delightfully detailed double-page spreads of David's backyard and surrounding neighborhood. Dusky pinks, cool whites and blues deliver a muted winter afternoon and evening, effectively contrasting with the glowing luminescence of twinkling windows. Winter's chills, rituals and resulting familial closeness, rendered in simple, surprisingly poignant drawings, make this a perennial read at first frost. (Picture book. 2-6)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
