Winter snow

PreS-Slegers's characteristically vivid and whimsical illustrations bring charm to these board books. Each one begins with a child describing his or her seasonally appropriate outdoor attire. The narrator then highlights familiar objects, such as leaves and acorns in the fall and sleds and snowmen in winter. "This is snow. The snow is falling down. Look! I made some big snowballs." Text is large and clearly presented on a white background with a small image above. A larger, related image fills the opposing page with bright color and cheer. These books offer just the right balance of comfort and excitement for the youngest readers.-Amelia Jenkins, Juneau Public Library, AK (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A toddler encounters a variety of winter phenomena and tells readers about wearing a hat and scarf, building a snowman and riding on a sled. The layout follows a set pattern throughout. The left-hand page shows an object or objects against a white background, and the right-hand page puts the object in question in context. Stand-alone snowballs on the left are paired with the toddler throwing them on the right, and a birdfeeder to the left is next to a close-up of a bird eating on the right. Some of the isolated objects, such as a bare branch, some falling snow and an old-fashioned sled, are very hard to recognize in their decontextualized state and look stark and lonely against the white background. It is odd that a book dubbed Winter Snow has only three scenes involving the stuff. Slegers' cartoon toddler clad in bright colors and wearing a perpetually crooked smile is friendly, but the Caucasian tyke's presence is not enough to fill out the sparse pages. There is a fine line in board books between simple and slight. Unlike other books by Slegers, this offering is a little slim. (Board book. 1-3)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.