Snow Music

PreS-Gr 4-This picture book begins and ends with a whisper of snow. In between, a lost dog, a boy, a girl, a deer, a rabbit, and a squirrel cross paths as readers follow their tracks through the vast white of the pages. The tracks are both textual and pictorial as they create meandering word patterns and paint pictures of footprints in the snow. From the "peth, peth, peth" of the falling snow to the "jingle, huff, jingle, huff-" of the runaway dog, the text sings. The written word becomes a choral reading with solo voices while the ink-and-watercolor illustrations add another dimension to the composition. On some pages the paintings add a hush to the music; on others they brighten the song. White backgrounds create a crisp cold day, while more colorful, painterly pages realistically picture the rural neighborhood. This title will harmonize well with Ezra Jack Keats's The Snowy Day (Viking, 1962) and other wintry favorites.-Carolyn Janssen, Children's Learning Center of the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, OH Copyright 2003 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Using subtle patterns of shapes, color and onomatopoeic sounds, Perkins (The Broken Cat) invokes multiple experiences and layers of meaning in this complex, imaginative picture book. A scene depicted inside a snow globe on the jacket appears to become the story's setting; in the final illustration, the globe sits on a shelf between a toy car and squirrel (both of which play a role in the story). Waking up after a snowfall, a boy accidentally lets his dog out of the house, then spends the day searching for him. Into this arc Perkins weaves separate, complete moments. For example, one spread shows a gray squirrel and its criss-crossing pawprints on the right, while on the left, lines of type mimic the haphazard pattern of the creature's path: "I think-/ I think/ I left it-/ I think/ I left it/ here-/ somewhere... / I think." Elsewhere Perkins spectacularly recreates the music of a winter's day: the dog, against a solid white background, runs off to the right; on the left, the canine's tags (and his exhalations) are pictured as notes on a musical staff, "jingle huff jingle huff." A car drives by ("poot poot poot poot poot..."); a leaf hits the pavement ("K-tk"); snow falls (the repeated word "peth" cascades down the page, contained in dozens of multihued blue circles). Although the intricate structure (abrupt transitions and multiple shifts in perspective) may make this story challenging for youngest readers, the sophistication of Perkins's melodic, rhythmic and visual orchestration merits attention from older readers. Ages 3-up. (Sept.) Copyright 2003 Publishers Weekly Used with permission.