Snow: A Reading Response

     Snow by Cynthia Rylant and illustrated by Lauren Stringer is a poetic children's book that reminds us of all the reasons we love the winter days that bring us snow.  This is a large sized book that allows for expansive winter illustrations inside, as well as hinting to the way landscapes look never-ending when draped in white.  On the cover, we witness a bundled up child that is taking the opportunity to play with large snow flakes that frame her to emphasize the topic of the story.    
     Opening the book we find the endpapers are the darkest blue with a single snowflake making its way into the picture changing to a background filled various light blue and white snow flakes that fill the final pages.  These images sandwich the story in a visual before and after of a sky during a snowstorm.  On the title page we find a young girl watching the snow from a window accompanied by her grandmother and cat in a cozy pose of contented watchfulness.
     Inside as the images of winter unfold, the lines of text are short, while the illustrations take center stage.  The descriptions of types of snow and snow activities are vivid, putting into words thoughts we have had but perhaps never noticed or voiced:

Some snows fall only lightly,

just enough

to make you notice

the delicate limbs of trees,

the light falling

from the lampost,

a sparrow's small feet.

     The illustrations alternate between taking up a page and a half, to full bleed, to boxes that show the major images described in the text.  The larger illustrations share scenes of children rejoicing in the snowstorm outside of their school as they prepare to return home, sliding down hills on their bottoms and bellies while making tracks, and a grandmother and child spending time together at the dining room table with hot drinks, games, and coloring.  Smaller squared pictures share images of single ideas: the delicate limbs of trees, a sparrow's tracks on the windowsill, or a child curled up with her pet.  

     Cynthia Rylant's Snow is an opportunity to explore things we can do or see in winter.  It is the perfect book to read in wintertime that could be used to bring to light the small details of snow that bring us just a little bit of whimsy and magic on cold winter days.