A little imagination can go a long way towards alleviating snow-day cabin fever. These wintry picture books celebrate thinking outside the box (or, in one case, thinking a box into outer space), making them perfect companions to preschoolers’ indoor imaginative play. In their third outing, Chirri & Chirra: The Snowy Day, Kaya Doi’s rosy-cheeked (and, […]
Snow day reading
February 13, 2017 by Leave a Comment
Most of New England has been buried in snow over the past few days, and many schools and workplaces are closed today. It’s a perfect excuse to cuddle up on the couch with a hot drink and a good book. Here are some suggestions for chilly reads to warm the heart — and help keep kids […]
Review of A Poem for Peter: The Story of Ezra Jack Keats and the Creation of The Snowy Day
January 10, 2017 by Leave a Comment
A Poem for Peter: The Story of Ezra Jack Keats and the Creation of The Snowy Day by Andrea Davis Pinkney; illus. by Lou Fancher and Steve Johnson Primary, Intermediate Viking 56 pp. 11/16 978-0-425-28768-2 $18.99 In evocative verse, Pinkney presents a picture book biography of Ezra Jack Keats, creator of the children’s classic The […]
The Enduring Footprints of Peter, Ezra Jack Keats, and The Snowy Day
July 7, 2016 by 4 Comments
In the spring of 1940, twenty-four-year-old Ezra Jack Keats cut a series of black-and-white photographs out of Life magazine. The four photos showed a small African American boy in Liberty County, Georgia, reacting to a blood test being administered by a public health nurse. Prior to the test, he looked happy and trusting. Afterwards, he […]
Snowy days
January 12, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Winter in New England (and in picture books) usually means one thing: snow. Here are a few stories to put readers in the mood for sledding, snowmen, and hot chocolate. While the city’s “brave trucks” perform flashy tasks such as fixing power lines and fighting fires, our unassuming, bespectacled hero — star of Stephen Savage’s […]
Snow day confessions
February 3, 2011 by Leave a Comment
What did the Horn Book staff read during their snow day yesterday? You may be surprised! Roger: I started listening to Cocaine Blues by Kerry Greenwood. It’s the first in a detective series set in the 1920s; here our Bright Young Thing heroine the Hon. Phyrne Fisher, bored with London, goes to Melbourne and finds […]
Review of The Snowy Day
February 5, 1963 by Leave a Comment
EZRA JACK KEATS, Author-Illustrator The Snowy Day (Viking) In this mood book, never static but sparkling with atmosphere in lovely water-color pictures, a small boy experiences the joys of a snowy day. The brief, vividly expressed text points out his new awareness of the sight and texture of snow (the crunch, crunch of his feet […]
