![]() ![]() Unvarnished pages and an elegant layout enhance the sense of magic in a natural world just out of view. She entertains children and adults alike with stories about her cats named Silas and Opal. The rhythm of the girl’s discoveries balances thoughtful discovery with moments of muted excitement, as when she skis downhill, then watches a fox pounce on a mouse (“His paws scratch away to find the mouse he heard scritch-scritch-scratching along underneath”). Grannie Snow aka Brenda Snow is a wonderful, self-published author from Morrisville, Vermont. A human father and daughter are tiny figures in a field of white, cross-country skiing past fir trees and glimpsing the occasional animal, while other creatures are visible in cutaway views below ground (“Under the snow, a queen bumblebee drowses away December, all alone. I lick sticky marshmallow from my lips and lean back with heavy eyes”) with debut illustrator Neal’s quiet, woodcut-like portraits of the snowy forest. Straddling the informative and the evocative, this lovely study of the ways animals spend the winter in a “secret kingdom under the snow” combines Messner’s (Sea Monster’s First Day) graceful prose (“Over the snow, the fire crackles, and sparks shoot up to the stars. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |