The Coolness Of Cold

Red skies glow through a flock of sheep-like clouds scattered before an incoming front.  Snow, accumulating snow, is set to arrive within the next couple of days.  Although it is not officially winter, more cold and snow are welcome to those who enjoy all four seasons.  

This portion of the year brings special and specific benefits.  When Winter Comes: Discovering Wildlife in Our Snowy Woods (Little Bigfoot, an imprint of Sasquatch Books, October 13, 2020) written by Aimee M. Bissonette with illustrations by Erin Hourigan reveals those advantages and some mysteries to readers.  Let's follow a family enjoying a winter world and all it offers to them.

When winter comes,

and deep snow blankets the woods,

and ice forms cold and smooth on

the lakes,

thick enough for us to skate on,

some people think our woods 

are empty.

The woods are not empty.  They are still full of nature's inhabitants.  A fallen, hollow log, coated in snow, harbors some insects, amphibians, and other creeping crawlers like snails or slugs.

Under the deep mounds of snow traversed by the family wearing snowshoes, there are tunnels in the protected earth.  Meadow mice scurry on their highways in search of food.  At night when predators roam, they can hide in safety there.

Under the lake's ice, fish move slowly.  Turtles rest in its mud at the bottom.  Above the ground, covered tree branches provide another haven.  In their sheltering boughs, birds are protected from the wild winter winds.  

The members of this family understand that some animals sleep in winter, others hunt, and others run from hunters.  They know the animals by their tracks.  They know the animals by the sounds they make at night.  Each day as they play in the woods, they know they are not alone but are companions with its inhabitants.

When reading the expressive words penned by Aimee M. Bissonette, we find ourselves enjoying winter in the woods along with the family.  Realizing which animals are near is like discovering a secret held by the season.  A rhythm is fashioned from the repetition of the words we know.  Aimee M. Bissonette frequently uses alliteration in her phrases, elevating her cadence.  Here is another passage.

We know the frozen lake where we come to ice fish

hosts a slushy slumber party of

sleepily swimming rainbow trout.

What one word comes to mind when looking at the front, right, of the matching and open dust jacket and book case?  For me, that one word is contentment.  One of the best parts of being outdoors in winter is the hushed but hopeful quality of the atmosphere.  Here, in this first scene, we are a part of that ambience.  It is as if we can feel the curiosity of the wildlife and the anticipation of the family at the same time.  In this frozen moment, all is as it should be.  

To the left, on the back, an interior image from the book is used.  It shows the family's A-Frame home in a meadow surrounded by evergreens with mountains in the distance.  Bird feeders are full of our feathered friends.  A parent and child watch.

On the opening and closing endpapers a muted hue of deep blue is swirled with snow.  Among the swirls are forest animals.  Some are resting and others are in motion.  A smaller illustration on the title page features the family seated on a log at the lake, putting on their ice skates.  In the foreground a rabbit and a mouse linger.  

Each detailed, two-page illustration is a wondrous display of nature, its animal and human residents living together.  Illustrator Erin Hourigan creates panoramic views you want to enter.  When we are close to the people or animals, it is as if we are there with them in the moment.  The people are animated and joyful.  The animals are carefully represented realistically.  Sometimes cutaways supply us with perspectives of activities above and below the surface.  

One of my many favorite pictures is toward the end of the book.  In this spot, we move close to the beings represented.  On the left side of the illustration a white-tailed male deer, wearing a rack of antlers, stands still in front of snow-covered evergreens as if just stepping from the sanctuary of the woods.  In front of him the parents and children are moving toward a hill for sledding.  The mother and one child are pulling sleds.  The child is slightly turned back and sees the deer.  The father is carrying the younger child on his shoulders.  

In this book, When Winter Comes: Discovering Wildlife in Our Snowy Woods written by Aimee M. Bissonette with artwork by Erin Hourigan, we are reminded of the wondrous world we share with its other residents.  We truly are never alone.  Life is all around us.  This will be a wonderful addition to your personal and professional collections to use for discussions on the seasons, wildlife in winter, and the value of conservation.

By following the link attached to the name of Aimee M. Bissonette and Erin Hourigan, you can learn more about them and their other work at their websites.  Aimee M. Bissonette has accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.  Erin Hourigan has accounts on Facebook and Instagram.  At Penguin Random House you can view interior images.

There are two important sections of our planet where cold and snow linger longer than any other place.  These locations are essential to maintaining a healthy balance for the continuation of Earth's survival.  They each have distinguishing characteristics with unique plants and animals.  ICE!: Poems About Polar Life (Holiday House, December 1, 2020) written and illustrated by Douglas Florian explores both the Arctic in the north and Antarctica in the south.  Witty wisdom and humor are prevalent in all the poems accompanied by whimsical, signature artwork.

THE POLAR REGIONS

Two polar regions on our Earth, 

and not a third or fourth.  . . .

This is the first sentence in the first of twenty-one poems about the polar regions, Antarctica and the Arctic.  The majority of the poems focus on the animals living in these areas.  Beneath the poems, paragraphs provide facts about each topic.

For these regions the sun, usually warming, is reflected from the snow and ice and maintains the chilly temperatures.  Regardless, ten species of whales are found in Antarctica.  You won't believe what variety of life lives hundreds of years there.  Emperor penguins are the largest penguins on our planet, with the males as protectors of the eggs until they hatch.

Up north in the Arctic climate change is affecting the ice, ice valuable to life there and, ultimately, to all of Earth.  On the Arctic tundra plant and animal life strives to thrive.  Polar bears wearing layers of fur wait for seals, blue whales consuming millions of krill daily are endangered, and Arctic foxes with thicker, bushier tails curl and take cover under those tails against the bitter cold and high winds.

Guess which animal has a special air sac to help them float or which animal can run up to forty miles per hour in spurts to avoid being eaten or which one has "flutings."  Having a hairy nose comes in handy when a moose roams in water.  Teaming up works well for gray wolves when they are hunting.  Caribou hollow hooves cleverly act as both snowshoes and shovels.

As we are entertained with the playful poems and artwork and are astonished by the characteristics of the selected animals, the book closes with a warning about climate change.  This is a difficulty needing a resolution.  We all must do our part.

Admittedly Douglas Florian is a master wordsmith. Each of these twenty-one poems demonstrates his love of language.  His word play is engaging and captivating.  He likens the polar regions to refrigerators.  He replaces words with partial words.  

It's not a place I'd like to live

but an ICE place to visit.

Repetition of a key word identifies the subject without ever mentioning the identifying word.  His rhyming, when used, is beautiful to behold.  Careful readers will spot the use of a homonym.  Within these poems, readers can also glean facts.  Here is a poem in its entirety. 

BLUE WHALE

The largest animal ever on Earth.

Wide as an airplane in its girth.

And head to tail it's just as long.

But yet it stops to sing a song.

And though a blue whale cannot fly,

it loves to leap up toward the sky.

The bones in each flipper resemble a hand,

which means that its ancestors lived on land.

The whale's a tale of evolution---

without an airplane's air pollution.

Rendered with

colored pencils and oil pastels

the illustrations first seen on the open and matching dust jacket and book case by Douglas Florian radiate a childlike quality, but meticulous observers will see the deft placement of prominent characteristics and references to the poems.  The color palette on the front is indeed frosty.  To the left, on the back, an orange canvas (like the shade shown on the front) frames a square image.  Here we see a smaller version of an interior picture of a caribou.  Hats are hanging on its antlers.  And its hooves are wearing boots in reference to their width and capabilities.

A bright blue covers the opening and closing endpapers.  A male emperor penguin shelters a newly hatched chick on the title page prior to the contents' text placed on vivid yellow.  Opposite each poem and factual paragraph is a single, full-page visual.

Highly animated, the pictures paint quirky portraits of the subjects.  The canvases on which the elements are placed mirror the frigid temperatures and biting winds.  A sneezing polar bear, an Arctic fox's barely visible face under its busy tail, an Arctic hare carrying an umbrella and seals wearing party hats and blowing on blowout whistles are only a few of the intriguing, humorous depictions.

One of my many favorite illustrations is for the gray wolf.  It is one of the simpler images.  The sky is a darker blue.  A huge yellow moon nearly fills the entire sky.  It rests on a hill.  On top of the hill, facing left and in front of the moon, is a wolf, head raised to howl.  Facing right is the face of the moon.  The moon is howling too.

Your personal and professional collections need this book.  At the close of ICE!: Poems About Polar Life written and illustrated by Douglas Florian, we are treated to a page of information about Douglas Florian, and a bibliography divided into books and internet sources.  This thoroughly spellbinding title will be an excellent and happy introduction, and a promoter of research and discussions.

To learn more about the artwork of Douglas Florian, please follow the link attached to his name to access his website.  Douglas Florian has an account on Instagram.  At the publisher's website there is a two-page educator's guide.  At Penguin Random House you can view portions of the interior including the contents.  I hope you enjoy this recent video with Douglas Florian speaking about poetry.

And So It Begins...

It came with a fury; the wind howling after a brief respite from the breezy day.  In the flashes of lightning leaves flew past my windows.  Thunder rumbled.  Rain pounded the outside of the house.  Temperatures dropped fourteen degrees in minutes with twenty more to fall in the night.  It's coming.  Winter.

Will it begin to softly fall while our world sleeps?  Will the ground be covered in the morning?  Will the air be sharp and chilly? Best in Snow (Beach Lane Books, an imprint of Simon& Schuster Children's Publishing Division, October 11, 2016) written and illustrated with photographs by April Pulley Sayre is a sensory sensation of the season's shift and the precipitation transformation.

A freeze.
A breeze.
A cloud.
It snows.

Flakes fall and cover the fur of waiting squirrels. Birds' feathers billow in the wind as snow swirls around them.  Leaves gracing the ground get a new coat.

If enough snow falls it disguises familiar forms creating new figures.  It goes where the wind wills it.  Heavy and wet, dry and fluffy it's an artist.

Bend close and see the magic it paints in tiny icy creations.  When the air warms it becomes something new.  This is only for mere moments in the scope of the season. Soon the cycle begins anew.


With a writer's eye and ear for cadence April Pulley Sayre fashions a poetic presence for snow.  Twice six words are used; carefully placed between a series of two or four word phrases.  Only once do three words signify a particular pause in the pacing.

With her observations and word choices Sayre draws our attention to snowing and snow.  She points out the conditions for flake formation, how it looks when and where it lands and what happens based upon humidity and temperature.  Here is another passage.

Water seeps.
Crystals feather
as ice creeps.

The opened dust jacket is a beautiful sight for our eyes as April Pulley Sayre freezes in a frame splashes of color in a snowy landscape.  Her choice of perception asks us to be constant in looking at the world in which we live.  On the left, the back, is a more panoramic woodland view with a tiny bit of red in an otherwise brown and very white landscape.  A cardinal sits, still as a statue, on a branch.  When you run your hands over both the left and right sides all the snow is slightly rough to the touch.  The title text is raised.  The book case matches the jacket less the textures.  The opening and closing endpapers are blue-jay blue.

The squirrel, a part of the opening and rhyming closing, is seen on the front jacket flap.  A heron stands poised on a snowy water's edge on the title page.  Each illustration, some spanning two pages, others partial pages or extending across the gutter, is a gorgeous glimpse of the beauty Mother Nature graciously bestows on us.  For some of the text Sayre groups pictures together in a trio separated by thin white lines.  Sayre brings us in close to see frosty delicate patterns and the tiny flakes on oak leaves and a duck's feathers.  She stands beneath a tree lightly coated in snow shooting upward toward a brilliant blue sky.  The hours spent waiting and watching to bring us these images must have been many.

One of my favorite photographs of several is a close-up of evergreen branches coated in snow. The sun has warmed them so icicles have formed on the ends drops dripping. I'll bet if you listen closely you can hear them fall.


Best in Snow is a stunning presentation of the types of snow as it moves through various phases.  The images strikingly enhance the spare but sensory text.  This book is an essential purchase for your professional and personal bookshelves.  At the close of the book two pages are dedicated to Secrets of Snow along with recommended books for reading.  Be sure to read the companion title Raindrops Roll.

To discover more about April Pulley Sayre and her other works, please take a few minutes to visit her website by following the link attached to her name.  At the publisher's website you can view eight interior illustrations.

Brrr...Zero?!

From seven o'clock this morning until seven o'clock tomorrow night the National Weather Service has issued a winter storm warning for fifteen counties in northwestern lower Michigan.  With snow falling in some places to more than a foot, the cold will follow quickly on its heels with the wind cranking up to near blizzard conditions.  While we Michiganders are used to wintry weather, it's been so mild to date, this is going to be a shock.

With the knowledge of an impending storm there is an air of urgency and preparation in the businesses in our small burg.  There is also a sense of anticipation; the anticipation of what this weather will mean for inside and outside activities.  When you combine the talents of author Eileen Spinelli with those of illustrator Marjorie Priceman, a beautiful but chilly book like Cold Snap (Alfred A. Knopf) results, taking a look at another small town caught in Mother Nature's grip.

It was snowy cold in Toby Mills.
Ears tingled.
Cheeks were frosty pink.
Toes, too numb to wiggle.

It begins with piles of snow inviting the inevitable snowball throwing, making of snow angels and sledding down T-Bone Hill.  Exhausted, wet and cold the children are forced to head home as evening approaches.  This is Friday.

By Saturday newspaper headlines feature the weather front and center.  Soup and stew are the local diner's entree of the day.  Being inside is distinctly more appealing.

Even long underwear worn under dresses, earmuffs, scarves and cuddling with the church cat cannot keep the cold from coming inside the church on Sunday.  Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday find the thermometer dipping lower and lower each day.  The icicle which began as a drip on the tip of General Toby's nose is close to touching the ground.

The endeavors of the citizens of Toby Mills have gone from enjoyment to survival, complaints to the mayor's office mounting.  It's his clever wife who hatches a nighttime surprise, gathering the entire town on top of T-Bone Hill.  Young and old alike, all the names readers have come to know, meet and greet each other rejoicing in what they have missed.


Chronicling the days of a week, Friday to Friday plus one, person by person, Eileen Spinelli makes readers feel as though they, too, are members of this close-knit community.  We are privy through her descriptive phrases and word choices (puffballs in the frigid air, slogged through the slush, huddle-cuddled) of the cold getting colder and the townspeople's reactions to this frosty turn of weather events.  Our collective knowledge of cold, what we would be willing to do when faced with similar circumstances, even though Spinelli assigns specific actions to specific people, binds us to this story.  Her technique of measuring the cold by the length of the icicle on the statue's nose paints a picture in our minds.  Not without humor, the mayor's wife brings him his pink bunny slippers and blue bathrobe to wear at the office, we begin to feel a distinct chill in the air.


Beginning with the front jacket, two-time Caldecott Honor award winner, Marjorie Priceman, using gouache on watercolor paper, whips up a batch of icy, snowy, blowy painted pictorial pieces of Toby Mills. The perspective shown to readers when first picking up this book, overlayed with the rough, sandpaper-like feel of pressed shiny snowflakes, leads readers into this winter's tale.  Brightly colored endpapers, the town thick with snow, provide an invitation, a bird's eye view of the place and its people.

A two-page visual extending across the gutter to page edge tucks publication information beneath a snow-covered hill, wind howling as a person walks up and over, snow shovel sticking up behind with the title above.  Throughout most of the book the illustrations, covering two pages, provide readers with a rare richness, color choices pulling them into the story despite the cold.  Single page visuals are faced with a page of smaller pictures text above or below.  Extra details reveal emotion, motion and shivers from the cold that gets colder and colder.  While many of the illustrations are worthy of framing my two favorites are of the children snow-play weary going home at night through the village and of the mayor's office, the Moffat home and the movie theater advertising Long Hot Summer and Little Miss Sunshine with B. Y. O. B. (bring your own blanket).


Cold Snap penned by master wordsmith Eileen Spinelli with vivid illustrations by Marjorie Priceman is a first choice for snow day reading.  Whether you winter in this type of weather or have never seen a single snowflake, there is "snow" doubt you will wonder why you now feel a cool breeze passing.  The blended skills of two masters has created a perfect picture....a book for readers of all ages.

Please follow this link to the publisher's website for more illustrations from this title.

Singular But Not Alone

Toward the end of November through the month of March handmade snowflakes, keepsakes, some more than twenty-five years old, hang above both entrances and the circulation desk in our library media center.  Students marvel at their intricate patterns amazed by the variety.  Not surprisingly enough I learned through my connection with picture books that no two snowflakes are alike.  If I had learned it somewhere along in my studies in grade school, high school or college, it was tucked away in the back corner of my mind to be resurrected with the publication of Snowflake Bentley, a Caldecott Medal winner in 1999 written by Jacquelin Briggs Martin and illustrated with woodcut designs by Mary Azarian.

Again I am reminded of this marvel in nature with the newest title written and illustrated by Keith Baker, No Two Alike.  An evergreen frosted in snow against a chilly winter sky, snowflakes softly falling, is the resting place of two perky red birds chirping away, a single illustration spanning the front and back covers.  Endpapers thick with snowflakes (I tried to find two alike) introduce readers to the red-feathered fliers as they venture out from their birdhouse to explore the frozen landscape.


Adventures begin, discoveries are made and questions are answered as these words follow the companions:

No two snowflakes are alike,
almost, almost...
but not quite.

The duo soars, completes aerial loops, tries to catch falling flakes, feather-tickles a slumbering squirrel, skis on pine needles, snacks on leaves, and taunts a passing fox.  Throughout their travels using spare, lilting, rhythmic verse Baker recites that nests, tracks in the snow, branches, leaves, forests, fences, roads, bridges, houses, and friends may be similar but each, in their pleasingly particular pattern, are unique.  His closing two page spread against the lacy falling flakes shows two large red feathers falling, identical except for the black tip on the one.

In response to an email Keith Baker states that his digitally rendered illustrations are first sketched in pencil.  Sketches are then scanned into Photoshop.  He draws and adds color with a stylus and Wacom Tablet.  None of his images are imported unless they have been drawn first by hand.  He wishes all his pictures to have a hand-crafted look rather than the super realism or 3-D style. My thanks go to Keith Baker for responding to my request.

To this reader's eye the visuals created by Baker are as fresh and crisp as the season which they depict but there is a softness to them; a feel of collage, a careful placement.  A subtle silence permeates from the pages despite the playful ventures of the two feathered friends.  The choice of red for the birds, that warmth, among the cooler colors of this time of year, when Mother Nature is at rest, draws readers into the narrative.  As he did in his New Times Bestseller, LMNO Peas, small bits of humor are woven into his visuals such as the birds making a pile of snowballs, calling out to the fox, ready to send one sailing through the air.

No Two Alike written and illustrated by the mind and hand of Keith Baker is a charming, refreshing, winter journey taken by two likable birds affirming our individuality with exhilaration.  This is going to be a perfect title to share during these January days aloud to groups of students who I know will beg to hear it again.  I will quickly comply with a smile.

A Ride To Remember

Having lived my entire life in Michigan, waiting for the snows of winter is the sweetest kind of anticipation; the thrill of shrieking and zipping down Dead Man's Hill has never been matched to this day.  Hoards of children from around the neighboring streets would gather for days filled with exhilarating activity, individual feats of daring and races to be won.  When I held Red Sled written and illustrated by Lita Judge for the first time looking at the cover, that same sense of expectancy washed over me and... a great big grin.

As the tale unfolds a small brown house, roof heavy with snow a tall solitary evergreen next to it, is the destination of a child carrying a red sled on a crispy cold day.  Evening descends lights glowing inside as the cherished icon of snowy delight rests against the house outside. Along comes a curious bear with a look of questioning possibilities on his face. 

Scrunch scrinch scrunch scrinch scrunch scrinch

appears on the page in reversed order and type size replicating the sounds made as the child returned home earlier; only this time the bear is carrying the sled as a rabbit head, ears alert, watches from the bottom of the page.  Readers next see the two cascading down a hill smiles plastered on their faces as joyous exclamations burst forth.  When they go for a second run bear on his back, rabbit riding his outstretched feet, a moose is taking it all in from the side of the page. 

Oh, you guessed it, the next illustration has the trio on a rip-roaring ride, full moon as their backdrop, moose on the bottom with bear riding on his antlers and rabbit not quite so sure about this. As they speed toward the hill's bottom a duo of raccoons peer from a hole as a hanging opossum looks at them as if to ask, "What do you think guys?  Should we join them?"  And so it goes as they, then a porcupine and mouse, are subsequently added to the mix. 

Going over a mound of snow, the group flies skyward moon glowing in the distance, only to land in a tangled happy heap.  In the morning the child wonderingly notices footprints going to and from his red sled.  As snow drifts down that night a watchful, yes, even hopeful, face gazes out.

The final single page display, the only one other than the title page, says it all...friends stacked together on the red sled rushing downward on a frosty full moon winter's night.  Ahhhh...delirious delight.

Lita Judge using watercolor and pencil illustrations emulates the chill of winter day and night, shades of blues against a stark snowy landscape moon resting in the sky.  Natural warm golden browns color her animals as animated eyes and mouths convey each and every feeling.  Judge's landscapes are spare allowing readers to focus on the frolicking, fun-filled antics of her characters.

The narrative is nearly wordless; cleverly Lita Judge accentuates the activities with one or two word phrases focusing entirely on sound.  So readers get ready for a rollicking journey on the Red Sled....Yipeee!  Simply divine from beginning to end.


Please be sure to view and browse through Lita Judge's enchanting web pages filled with additional images from her books and activities to use stretching the reading experience.