Winter Wonders

Winter Wonders

Jonathan Bean’s ‘Big Snow,’ and More

Blizzard of his dreams: From "Big Snow."

By NELL CASEY

Published: December 20, 2013

My 3-year old daughter knows nothing of snow. She’d only just turned 2 when we moved to Rome — a spellbinding city in many ways but one where snow rarely falls. (In 2012, a blizzard ground the city to a halt, and Romans are still talking about it with wide-eyed amazement.) My daughter can’t possibly remember the winters of her New York babyhood, but suddenly, about six months ago, she began to ask me when the snow would come. When would we play in the snow? Where was the snow hiding? I could only guess she was exhibiting a child’s sixth sense for wonder: Snow is a portal out of the ordinary churn of life, forcing even grown-ups to go out and play. Coincidentally, and luckily for my daughter, three new picture books herald the majesty of snow, bringing its almost magically transformative power to any child who yearns for it.

BIG SNOW

Written and illustrated by Jonathan Bean

32 pp. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. $16.99. (Picture book; ages 3 to 6)

WHEN IT SNOWS

Written and illustrated by Richard Collingridge

32 pp. Feiwel & Friends. $16.99. (Picture book; ages 3 to 6)

WINTER IS FOR SNOW

Written and illustrated by Robert Neubecker

32 pp. Disney-Hyperion. $16.99. (Picture book; ages 3 to 6)

Enlarge This Image

From "When It Snows."

In “Big Snow,” written and illustrated by Jonathan Bean, another child anxious to see a winter wonderland asks his mother again and again about the impending blizzard. Amazingly, she persuades her son — named David — to help her do chores around the house as he waits for the predicted snowfall. But something about each task (the fine, white flour used for cookie dough, the white sheets of his newly made bed) reminds the boy of what might be happening outside, and he can’t resist dashing out to take a look. With each trip to the backyard, the weather gives David just a bit more of what he has been eagerly awaiting — until finally the flakes have accumulated so much they are “covering everything, white and cool.” As with the hero of “The Snowy Day,” by Ezra Jack Keats (1962), David, who like Keats’s main character, Peter, is African-American, goes to sleep and dreams of snow. Peter, however, imagined the snow disappearing, while David’s dream takes him in another direction. Here, the snow becomes a hapless and threatening force, howling and bursting through doors, piling up in drifts inside the tidy suburban home. (Apparently hellbent on cleaning even in her son’s dreams, David’s mother is shown pushing a vacuum through piles of snow, a steely look of determination in her eyes.) This fantastical moment ends as abruptly as it began when the boy’s father arrives, stomping his shoes in the doorway and waking his son from his nightmare. We are suddenly and safely returned to the consoling home life — portrayed in happy and straightforward watercolor pictures — that has become the signature of Bean’s work. It’s a nifty trick: The brief and unexpected peril of the dream makes the long-anticipated moment when the family bundles up and goes out to enjoy the storm all the cozier.

In his first picture book, “When It Snows,” the British illustrator Richard Collingridge dives headlong into a fantasy of the season, showing it to be a vast and mountainous expanse of white, both eerie and enchanting. The story starts by explaining that “when it snows . . . all the cars are stuck and the train disappears,” but this wintry world looks as if the downfall has obliterated all traces of mundane existence. What’s left is a ­Narnia-like land, with a giant snowman and the Queen of the Poles, a towering woman who wears a horned crown and lives in a gloomy forest with thousands of elves. A small, unnamed and apparently fearless boy, accompanied by his teddy bear, leads us through this journey — the illustrations initially luminous but growing continuously darker as he delves deeper into this mysterious world. But just as it seems the boy may be traveling into a somber fairy tale, the story twists sharply back to reality and the little boy finds himself reading the very same Collingridge book by the fire. Unfortunately, this self-referential ending feels abrupt and at odds with the rest of the book.

“Winter Is for Snow” is a tale of two siblings — a brother who loves the icy flakes pouring down outside their apartment window and a sister who is cranky about it all — by the prolific children’s book author and illustrator Robert Neubecker. These two start out like Desi and Lucy, disagreeing about everything. “Winter is for fabulous! Winter is for snow,” sings out the copper-haired brother. “Winter is for lots of clothes! And I don’t want to go,” deadpans his younger copper-haired sister. (Her blasphemy recalls a Carl Reiner quip: “A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water.”) These small urbanites argue back and forth in delightful, singsong rhyme, the brother joyfully throwing his arms up and kicking his legs out to add emphasis to his argument, which grows more elaborate with every page. “Winter is for glaciers, with walruses and seals,” he pleads, “diving in the icy sea for scaly, fishy meals.” Slowly but surely, he manages to dress his sister and edge her outdoors into a cityscape colorfully and whimsically depicted with a park jam-packed with people frolicking in an excellent variety of snow hats. Though she has resisted her brother’s — and winter’s — charms, even turning her attention to a beeping electronic device (at which point lesser brothers would have given up), we eventually see him pulling her along on a sled. And then, a little too easily, she finally changes her mind, declaring, “I love snow!” It’s nice to see her hardworking brother win the argument and to see them both out enjoying the fresh air. But she was such a good curmudgeon — I missed her old self a little when she was gone.