Book Review #3

  1. Bibliographic Data:

Keats, Ezra J. The Snowy Day. Viking Penguin Inc. 1962. ISBN 978-0-670-06259-1

2. Plot Summary:

The story starts with a little boy who wakes up and sees snow. He is curious to go outside and play in it. He begins by grabbing a stick and playing with a tree, then starts sliding down the big pile of snow. As the boy continues playing, he keeps a snowball to play with later, but it melts away, and he is trying to understand the concept of evaporation. He promises himself that he will play again the next day, ready for a new adventure.

3. Critical Analysis:

The book involves a lot of sounds and short phrases that help engage children in reading. As it follows the story of a young boy playing in the snow, it portrays a lot of games and activities that children do and can relate to such as playing with sticks, being curious to go outside, playing with the neighboring children, taking a bath, and dreaming. The pictures also allow for children to imagine and clearly see what the words are saying to connect with art and images. I think a weakness that this book might have is that the facial expressions on the story characters' faces is unclear or blurry. Children can be very emotional beings, and in order to help develop their empathy, they need to see and read a lot of characters processing emotions, and that includes facial expressions. These characters had blurry faces and couldn't really distinguish their emotions on their face. Now as far as the words, the phrases such as "crunch, crunch, crunch," and "s-l-o-w-l-y," help children follow the pacing of the story and connect with the audio of how the words sound.

4. Review Excerpt:

Good Reads Review: "he colors and patterns in this book are beautiful, the simple concept of adventuring in the snow and returning to a loving home makes a great read for young children who can share the joy and the magic with Peter. My daughter commented 'poor tree' when Peter smacks the tree with stick, personally if I am reading/talking to small children I am careful about the language I use and this could more positively be described as Peter tapping the snow from the tree, but minor point, very lovely story of a snowy day."

5. Connections:

Children are able to connect to the snow wanting to go out in the snow to play. Even though they may not have ever been exposed to snow, they are able to get a glimpse at what it's like and see what to do if they ever encounter it. It also encourages them to play with other kids their age.