The Snowy Day, Here in Wisconsin
It’s 11 degrees, windy and snowing here in Wisconsin. I’m glad, given that we are stuck at home with the croup anyways. The snow outside makes it snuggly inside, and so we hunker down to wait out the storm with a classic: The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats (Viking, 1962).
In my previous life, I must have been a snowman. I’m head over heels for the white stuff. I start listening to the White Christmas soundtrack in October. My daughter and I decorate our windowpanes with homemade snowflakes early in December. If by December 22 there is still no snow we dance our snow dance beckoning the snow gods to drop at least a foot.
And when it does finally start falling, we run around the house like crazy people until the ground is white and ready for us to finally go out and play.
Keats does everything so well, and that’s why this book is a classic, but again this blog is about what makes a book magical in my house.
Peter does everything my daughter loves to do. She loves to make footprints in the snow. On one of our snow days this year she even quoted the book, “Crunch, crunch, crunch,” she said. The simplicity, the truth, of the book is what makes it so special for me. Peter’s prints with toes pointing in, and then out. Finding a stick to make a track in the snow. Making a snowman. A snow angel. This is what a snowy day is really all about.
When we first started reading the book a few months ago, my daughter would look at the two page spread of Peter climbing the hill and sliding down and say, every time, “There’s two Peters.” (He is pictured on the first page at the top of the hill and the bottom of the hill on the next). She is as sweet as the book.
A book that we have read a dozen (if not more) times this winter. It makes for a perfect bedtime book. At first we read it in an attempt to herald in the snow. Then to celebrate it. As we read it today I could feel that we are nearing the end of what has been a reasonably snowy season (certainly better than last year). Soon, Peter’s dream will be a reality and the sun will melt the snow away…
Thank goodness there are so many great picture books about spring.
Picture Book House Rating: Read it Again, Mommy!
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