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Title: Snow (Sunburst Books)
ISBN: 0374468621
Author:
Uri Shulevitz
Publicate Date: 2004-10-06
Publish: 2004-10-06
List Price: $6.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $2.82
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $2.25
Amazon Merchant Price: $6.95
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| Customer Review: |
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1: S N O W GLAD TO HAVE!!
THIS SIMPLY LITTLE BOOK IS DIFFERENT & WE R GLAD WE HAVE IT! GREAT IDEA OF SHOWING HOW SOMETHING AS SMALL AS A SINGLE SNOWFLAKE CAN QUICKLY BECOME SO MUCH MORE!!!
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2: Read This to Your Class as the First Snow is Falling
This is a great book to read to students as the first snowfall is coming down. I have older students in ESOL but they are learning English and often come from other countries so reading an easy book is can be interesting and meaningful to them. This is a beautiful book they can practice reading on their own later after I have read it to the class. Many of my beginning students have never seen snow before so it is mysterious and very interesting to them. They love it!
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3: An all time favorite.
We (our two boys and ourselves) have checked this book out from the library countless times. It's about time we had a copy for ourselves AND that I send a copy to my NYC dwelling, 45 year old big brother who still believes in the magic of snow that all children know. The boy in this story reminds me of him.
An all time favorite. Perfect in its simplicity.
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4: Wonderful illustrations!
Everything goes together in this book. The illustrations are simple and evocative, the text is minimal, you need to read it with weight to convey the mood; the gray, unremarkable city populated with gray, unremarkable adults is uninspiring. A little boy sees one snowflake (yes, it's there, look hard) and gets excited. Not so the adults: 'grandfather with beard', 'man with hat', and 'woman with umbrella' brush him off. The city is still gray. WE are gray, but the boy believes and indeed the snowflakes keep coming until they begin to build up on the street and buildings. The boy and his Mother Goose companions get happier and the illustrations get brighter. The dour adults are driven indoors, the boy dances with delight. Imagination, enthusiasm, and hope have triumphed.
With few words and understated illustrations the book is amazingly alive!
My only reservation is that many of the pictures are rather too small for a story group to really appreciate from a distance. In order for the children to take note of the details (such as one lone snowflake) it is necessary to bring the pages down to each child for a closer look. This does bleak the reading flow. A few unfolding pages when applicable (as in "Papa, Please Get The Moon For Me")would go a long way to making this story more visual. Aside from that little quibble I think this is a delightful book for children.
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5: A snowy day
By and large, the general rule guiding picture books and the Caldecott awards they garner is that no children's author/illustrator ever wins the Caldecott Award for their best work. This rule generally applies to all awards, I suppose in some way. Oscar winning actors, actresses, and directors never seem to win for their best films either. But the case seems to be even more extreme when it comes to picture books. Let's take author/illustrator extraordinaire Uri Shulevitz as our example. Now review your Caldecott knowledge and tell me what book earned Shulevitz a Caldecott. If you said, "The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship", you are correct. Now, tell me which book Shulevitz both wrote and illustrated which DESERVED the Caldecott Award (not Honor). If you said, "Snow" then you are once more right right right. I recently discovered this charming and thoroughly pleasing little book all on my own and I can tell you here and now that aside from the great "Snowy Day" by Ezra Jack Keats, there is no other book that so skillfully pinpoints the elation a child feels at the first real snowfall of the year.
We're in a village. A village where the clouds hang heavy overhead and the only words on the first page are, "The skies are gray. The rooftops are gray. The whole city is gray". The next two-page spread gives a perfect sense of anticipation. Underneath this mono-colored set of stores and houses are the words, "Then......one snowflake". And if you look very very carefully, there's a single spot of white against the gray swelling watercolor that is the sky. A boy in an orange hat points out the flake with delight, his dog by his side. His grandfather, however, doesn't think snow is possible. Then there are two snowflakes (with a man in a hat pish-pishing the possibility). Then there are three snowflakes and a lady with an umbrella proclaims that they'll simply melt. And they do, it's true. "But as soon as one snowflake melts another takes its place". And in spite of the adults and in spite of the radio and in spite of the television, it begins to snow. The boy frolics with his dog and some imaginary friends. And by the time the snow is done the whole city is white but the sky is a brilliant bright sunny blue hue.
This is a book about hope. How childish belief can overcome adult nay-sayers and jaded remarks. Never mind that after a few months the kid will want to see anything BUT snow. At this point in time, he's trumped the grown-ups of the world. I especially enjoyed the parts of the book that declared that "snowflakes don't listen to radio, snowflakes don't watch television". What snowflakes do is fall. Shulevitz spares his words for the moments when they are most needed. When they do come, they are brisk and to the point. His boy and dog, on the other hand, are playful and exuberant. This book in some ways resembles nothing so much as a Maurice Sendak story. The frolicking child character is especially Sendakian, it now occurs to me. Still, these illustrations are far more subtle and restrained than most other picture books. The snowflakes, when they appear, are so tiny and insignificant that it takes a quick eye to spot them. The watercolors are lovely muted tones and the characters (at least the adults) are people with exaggerated gravity, quickly becoming ridiculous when they find themselves caught out in an "unexpected" snowfall.
You can tell readily if some books will be lovely deeply and dearly by children for years to come. This is one such of a kind. It's bound to be beloved by millions for decades and decades. A wonderful discovery
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