Books to Love: A Winter Respite: The Children's Edition

While we are all anticipating the approach of spring, it must be stated that it is still winter. Where I live, there is a thick coat of ice crystallizing every tree branch and twig making the world truly look like a winter wonderland.

After two ice storms and another rumored on the horizon, we here at Whiskers have made indoor pursuits front and center. My Little Man has built an indoor campground complete with tent and miniature campfire. He’s also built a a comprehensive train track system as well as several helicopters and airplanes on his tool bench. But for a child who prizes his time out of doors, this weather has thoroughly cramped his style.

Enter the world of books.

Today I am sharing some of the books that have been reads to accompany us through this cold snap. Fingers crossed that it’s the last cold snap, though I anticipate it may not be, regardless of whether or not Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow or not.

The Snowy Day • Ezra Jack Keats

There is no more perfect read for a snow day than Ezra Jack Keats’ Caldecott Medal winning book The Snowy Day. This one finds a special place in my heart as it depicts a landscape that is very familiar to me. While I may reside in the country now, I was born and raised in New York City, so seeing kids in their snow suits playing on each other’s stoops was a very common sight while I was growing up. I was one of those kids.

The Snowy Day is a rare children’s book as it effected great change during a time when it was most needed. You see, The Snowy Day was written and published in 1962. In some states, it was banned immediately.

Why?

The Snowy Day was the first popular children’s novel to actively present a black child as the main character. Furthermore, it is done in such a manner as to show that this child is no different than any other child, nor is the family he comes from or the home in which he lives.

Peter, the little boy in the book, is a hero in culture because Ezra Jack Keats did him the supreme honor of allowing him the integrity of just being and belonging.

As to the story, like the other books you’ll see highlighted here, it’s a rather simple one. Peter wakes up one day in the his city home to find that the world outside is blanketed in snow. After wolfing down his breakfast, he puts on his snow suit and begins the grand adventure of The Snowy Day.

Nothing cataclysmic happens to him. He just explores the snow covered world with the wonder of a child. I’ve witnessed that same sense of wonderment and exploration within my own son. It has been through him that I have been allowed to experience the world around me with renewed wonder as well.

As an artist, I appreciate the illustrations in this book. They are highly stylized, which makes them unique to their author. Children will love the block colors, too. Though it is not in any way like Eric Carle’s style, The Snowy Day puts me in remembrance of his work because it has such unique integrity within itself.

As a writer, I love the onomatopoeia that you find feathered throughout the narrative.

As a parent, I love the universality of the story. The antics that Peter gets in to on his snow day are the very same ones that every parent has witnessed with their own children, too.

It’s a short read, but a sweet one. It’s perfect for children of any age, but especially those from infancy to toddlerhood. The story is short, the lines on each page are few, so it keeps their attention more readily as you turn the pages and present them with new images more often.

The Mitten • Jan Brett

There are many things which I appreciate about The Mitten by Jan Brett. First, it is an adaptation of an Ukrainian folktale. I so enjoy learning and listening to the folklore from different cultures around the world. Without The Mitten, I would not have known the delight of this story.

Second, Jan Brett is a phenomenal illustrator. The images in The Mitten evoke the Ukrainian culture as well, from the layout of the home to the clothing that the characters wear. Furthermore, the landscape screams Eastern Europe.

The tale is simple, as most children’s stories are, but within it’s simplicity lies the wonderment. It begins in the coziness of a rural home nestled in the snowy landscape. The young boy, Nicki, is excited as he watches his Baba (grandmother) knit him mittens so that he can play out in the snow. Nicki pesters his Baba to make his white mittens. She tells him that white mittens are not a good idea because he will lose them in the snow if he drops them. But Nicki persists and Baba relents, knitting him pure white mittens.

Once complete, Nicki slips them on his hands and heads out of doors. He climbs trees and generally gets lost in the imaginary world that children do. And, as little ones are apt to do, Nicki loses one of his mittens. Just as Baba said, it fell to the snow as he was playing and now he cannot find it. While this may seen like all the ingredients for a tragedy, it is at this juncture that all the fun and wonderment truly begins.

If you have not read The Mitten by Jan Brett, you are truly in for a treat.

If you have read The Mitten, or are looking for more like it then may I suggest two more offerings from Jan Brett, The Hat and The Three Snow Bears. Both remain in the same vein of winter tales.

The Blizzard • Betty Ren Wright

Anyone who has had a birthday in the dead of winter, particularly one close to Christmas, knows that there are definitely hardships attached with it. My husband is a December baby. We have a niece born on Christmas Eve and a dear friend born the day after Christmas. And our son was born in early January. We thoroughly understand cancelled birthday plans because of overshadowing events or weather.

In Betty Ren Wright’s The Blizzard, Billy hears the unhappy news at the breakfast table that his cousin’s won’t be coming to celebrate his birthday later that day because there is the promise of more snow coming.

From the context, we know that Billy lives on a farm with his father, mother, and sister, Mae, somewhere in the Midwest. If I had to guess, I’d say Kansas or Nebraska, perhaps even the Dakotas or Montana.

His mother hands him and his sister, their lunch pails and ushers them out the door to school. Their school is a one room schoolhouse where children of all ages gather to learn from Miss Bailey, the teacher. There is an outhouse out back in the schoolyard.

The children take their lessons through the morning, cozy in the schoolhouse around the potbellied stove. Then lunch comes, followed by recess. Since Billy is surrounded with friends, he forgets that his cousins won’t be home waiting for him when school finishes.

Then, while applied to the afternoon lessons, Miss Bailey looks out the window and sees that the snow has kicked up a ruckus. It’s no longer a gentle snowfall, but a whipping, whistling, whiting snow storm. Miss Bailey tells the children to all prepare to go home as their parents will be arriving to get them before the road becomes impassable.

At that moment, a man enters the schoolhouse, snow covering him from head to toe. It’s Mr. Carter, and he’s come to tell Miss Bailey that the road is impassable and they shall have to stay at the schoolhouse overnight. Knowing that there are no provisions in the way of food, fuel, or bed linens, Miss Bailey, along with Mr. Carter, make the decisions to travel linked hand in hand in a human chain through the snow to Billy’s home. It’s the only house within close walking distance. They will throw themselves on the mercy of Billy’s family for shelter.

Thus begins a grand birthday adventure.

The Blizzard is illustrated by Ronald Himler. I enjoy the watercolor imagery, especially the snowball fight in Billy’s yard. The technique is loose as watercolor is a sketching medium, but the small details drawn in are lovely.

If Little House in the Big Wood or Sarah, Plain and Tall are books that you enjoy, if you find authors like Willa Cather and Gene Stratton-Porter alluring, then you will like The Blizzard. It’s a slice of life that no longer exists; my grandmother could remember days like the one in The Blizzard. That’s why I like this book. It brings history alive for the next generation.

Winter Story • Jill BarKlem

Having a toddler has been such a blessing to me in so many ways. One of these blessings have been revisiting so many children’s books. AND discovering ones that I cannot believe I didn’t know about.

One such instance is the Brambly Hedge stories written by Jill Barklem. These stories follow the lives and daily adventures of the woodland mice that live in Brambly Hedge.

Perhaps blame for this can be laid at the feet of Angelina Ballerina or maybe Beatrix Potter and her assortment of woodland animals, but I find the tales set in the woodlands featuring the personified creatures therein to be delightful.

Winter Story fits this bill beautifully. It begins on the eve of a great snow storm. Mr. Apple, warden of the Store Stump, locks up the Store Stump and scurries to his home in Brambly Hedge. He is greeted by a cheery hello from Mrs. Apple who has spent the day in preparation for the great snow that is to fall. As Mr. Apple dusts the flakes of snow that cling to the shoulders of his overcoat off, he sniffs the delectable air that is replete with the fragrance of cakes and pies and other such cozy confections.

Next door, the Toadflax children have their noses glued to the window watching at their world turns into a white wonderland by moonlight. They are a mischievous bunch of mice, but they are sweet things nonetheless. The excitement of the snow is expressed perfectly through them.

The next morning, Brambly Hedge wakes to find everything covered in white. It’s the grandest snow the Hedgerow has seen in many a year. And, a grand snow such as this deserves a Snow Ball.

Winter Story chronicles all the preparations undertaken by all the mice of Brambly Hedge to have a Snow Ball. You see how the Hall itself is built, how the food stuffs are prepared. You hear stories from the senior mice in the community about the last Snow Ball that was thrown.

Like Jan Brett, the illustrations of Winter Story of meticulously detailed. From color choice to the depictions of domesticity, they evoke the quaintness of the country and the warmth found at hearth and home.

The tale is simple and sweet. It is reminiscent of those classic tales from the English countryside that Beatrix Potter immortalized. By the end, you’ll feel a cozy, comfortable satisfaction, which is just the thing when you’re cozied up in your home on a cold winter’s day.

Regardless if you have children (or grandchildren) in your life or not, I encourage you to take the time to read through these books. Within the fast paced society that we live, carving away time to revisit tales from our youth, or geared toward the youth, allow us to slow our pace and enjoy simple pleasures we so often speed past. Each one of these books holds true sweetness and will leave you satisfied in spirit and soul at their conclusion.

As Grandmother taught Little Bear and his friends while they were Snowbound (an adapted animated series from Maurice Sendack’s Little Bear books),