The Snowy Day

                                 

                                           http://publiclibrariesonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/book_cover_a_snowy_day_by_ezra_jack_keats.jpg

Keats, Ezra Jack. 1962. The Snowy Day. New York, NY: Viking Press. ISBN 0670654000

Summary

A small child named Peter wakes up to find the city covered in snow. After breakfast, he puts on his snowsuit and makes tracks in the snow, builds a snowman, forms snow angels, and climbs a snow mountain to slide all the way down. Before returning home, Peter makes a snowball to save in his pocket for tomorrow. Peter, back in his warm house, tells his mother about his adventures as he prepares for bedtime. Peter is saddened when he checks his pocket for his snowball and it has disappeared. He dreams of all the snow melting away, but Peter awakes to another snow filled day, and he sets off to enjoy it with a friend. 

Critical Analysis

Ezra Keats has created a picture book for young children that celebrates experiencing the world around you. The universal appeal of The Snowy Day is in the pleasure the main character finds in the many ways to play in the snow. The snow covered cityscape that Peter walks through making various types of tracks in snow is the primary setting of the book, but the warm comfort of Peter's home is also important to Keats' story.  The story of Peter's day is not elaborate; the simple object of a stick becomes a toy that is just right for Peter's snowy adventure. However, Keats' vivid, sometimes repetitive language, such as "Crunch, crunch, crunch…",  brings a day spent in the snow to life, even for children who have never themselves had the experience.

It is worthy of mention, that Peter in The Snowy Day is an African American protagonist. This is as important today as it was in 1962 when the book was published because still too few books in children's literature feature people of color.  However, color of skin or race is not the point of the book. The book' s beauty is found in the universal wonder of a child's experience with snow. In fact, even though Keats handles other themes important to young children, such as being too small to play with older children or the disappointment of losing a treasured object (the snowball in his pocket), the messages in Keats' text are subtle and understated playing second to Peter's delight.

Keats uses a mixed medium of painting and collage to create Peter's bright, radiant snow covered city. His art work is deceptively simple, facial features are not defined, but Keats somehow masterfully captures Peter's emotions and feelings with the tiniest amount of expression or slightest tilt of the head. Keats' use of bright color is appealing for young children, from Peter's bright red snowsuit to the vibrant blue of the sky. Even the snow of Keats' illustrations is not simply white, but instead washed in pinks, blues, and oranges and adds a luminous, magical quality to Keats' world. 

My favorite part of Keats' story is Peter trying to save the snowball in his pocket. What child has not picked up stones from the park or shells from the beach to save a memento from a fun day? I also like how the book shows Peter creating fun all by himself for a day, but then heading out to enjoy the next day with a friend. This is a nice honest look at balanced play. 

Awards

Ezra Jack Keats won the Caldecott medal for The Snowy Day in 1963.

Reviews

A review in Publishers Weekly, January 01, 1996, states, "Now in a sturdy board-book format just right for youngest readers, Ezra Jack Keats's classic The Snowy Day, winner of the 1963 Caldecott Medal, pays homage to the wonder and pure pleasure a child experiences when the world is blanketed in snow."

Connections

After reading The Snow Day, children can share their favorite play for different types of weather: sunny days, rainy days, windy days, snowy days. This book would be good paired in a story time with Linda Ashman's Rain!, which is about a child who experiences all the fun to be had on a rainy day. Children could use brightly colored pieces of construction paper to create collage art that expresses their experiences. 

References

Books In Print. Texas Woman's University. Accessed September 09, 2013.