Clean, cold, white snow! Snow for sledding. Snow for catching on your tongue. Snow for making a SNOWMAN! Is there anything as wonderful as SNOW? Is there any better friend than a SNOWMAN? Snow isn't forever, though. The wind shifts, the weather warms and snow melts into spring. The Snowman has become something else--the fog, the rain. But, how can this boy forget his good friend? He doesn't...and he doesn't have to.
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Bestselling author, Alison McGhee reminds us all that nothing that has been cared for can ever disappear for good, for, "What you love will always be with you." And, this tender story about the power of friendship will stay with readers long after they turn the last page.
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"McGhee takes up an ethereal subject: longing for absent loved ones. A boy builds--and happily befriends--a snowman, which later melts in a spring thaw. "Where did you go?" the boy wonders. "Look," writes McGhee (Someday), as the seasons shift and the boy pours a bucket of water into a pond. "He is in the falling water, and the rain upon the ocean." Rosenthal's (I Must Have Bobo!) boxy houses and rural scenes speak of simpler times, and the soft, sepia outlines of his pencil drawings look like old lithographs. Visual hints of the snowman's lingering presence--ripples in the pond echo his charcoal facial features--underscore McGhee's message. (And just in case readers miss it, it's also spelled out in a refrain, "What you love will always be with you.") The success of the book is in the gentle rhythm created by McGhee's telegraphic text and Rosenthal's spot illustrations, and in its evocation of the long waits of childhood, so difficult for the young to endure. All ages."--Ā Publishers Weekly, September 5, 2011
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Alison McGhee is theĀ New York TimesĀ bestselling author ofĀ Someday, as well asĀ Dear Sister,Ā What I Leave Behind,Ā Pablo and Birdy,Ā Where We Are,Ā Maybe a FoxĀ with Kathi Appelt,Ā Firefly Hollow,Ā Little Boy,Ā So Many Days,Ā Star Bright,Ā A Very Brave Witch,Ā Dear Brother, and the Bink and Gollie books. Her other children's books includeĀ All Rivers Flow to the Sea,Ā Countdown to Kindergarten, andĀ Snap!. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Laguna Beach, California. You can visit her at AlisonMcGhee.com.
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Marc Rosenthal is theĀ New York TimesĀ bestselling illustrator of many books for children, including the Small Walt collection by Elizabeth Verdick,Ā All You Need Is LoveĀ by John Lennon and Paul McCartney,Ā I Must Have Bobo!Ā by Eileen Rosenthal,Ā We Love Fishing!Ā andĀ Mabel Wants a FriendĀ by Ariel Bernstein, andĀ Archie and the Pirates, which he wrote. He lives in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Learn more at Marc-Rosenthal.com.
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Target Age: 4-8
Antheneum Books for Young Readers
Pub Date: October 04, 2011
0.4" H x 9.78" L x 8.39" W
40 pages
hardcover