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by Addy Farmer

not a computer in sight

Moominpapa could write whenever he wanted to

Winter is coming (say it like a cinema trailer announcement). Put that way, it sounds scary which to my mind is not a bad thing. Traditionally, Winter is associated with death and hibernation. It is when the flowers fold and the garden hides. The cold makes your fingers freeze and your bones ache; it requires effort to keep warm and keep moving.

Hope you're wearing a vest, Gandalf

So, let's look at the coming of Winter another way. 'Winter is coming!' Woo-hoo. The days will be short and the nights will be long and the fire will be flickering and there are stories to be told and there will be
SNOW!

Winter Time by Robert Louis Stevenson

Close by the jolly fire I sit
To warm my frozen bones a bit;
Or with a reindeer-sled, explore
The colder countries round the door.

When to go out, my nurse doth wrap
Me in my comforter and cap;
The cold wind burns my face, and blows
Its frosty pepper up my nose.

Black are my steps on silver sod;
Thick blows my frosty breath abroad;
And tree and house, and hill and lake,
Are frosted like a wedding cake.

Here, in A Child's Garden of Verses, Stevenson sums up all the good stuff I used to love as a child about Winter. it could be the comfort of playing outside on a snapping-cold day, then the glorious comfort of warming yourself, not to mention the breath-taking beauty of a landscape transformed by SNOW.

Where the dickens did all this snow come from?!

Snow. I can't say it enough. Who cannot love a fresh fall of snow? To read Dickens you'd think it was as deep and regular as the seasons themselves. But frozen winters with frost fairs were a thing of the medieval past. It seems that Dickens was being nostalgic, looking back to a time when snow was more likely in winter. Snow was very much part of his winter story, A Christmas Carol. It made Victorian London almost cosy and charming.

" The darkness and the mist had vanished with it, for it was a clear, cold winter day, with snow upon the ground ... the quick wheels dashing the hoar-frost and snow from off the dark leaves of the evergreens like spray"

I like that C.S Lewis added a touch of Victorian London to Narnia. Not only that but the snow makes it beautiful. I want to go there. The snow plays a more sinister role here; it is seen as stilling time and freezes life to its essentials. The land waits for Winter to end (spoiler - it does).

Guess where this is Snow can blanket and muffle and make the world a silent place. Time stands still and you are the only person in this white world. "Our snow was not only shaken from white wash buckets down the sky, it came shawling out of the ground and swam and drifted out of the arms and hands and bodies of the trees; snow grew overnight on the roofs of the houses like a pure and grandfather moss, minutely -ivied the walls and settled on the postman, opening the gate, like a dumb, numb thunder-storm of white, torn Christmas cards." Dylan Thomas, A Child's Christmas in Wales

Snow can bring danger from creatures which form part of a wild and distant past.

RUN!

Mad as a box of frogs

Snow can be a truly scary person, The White Queen in Narnia or The Snow Queen. In the story of Kay and Gerda we see how the snow forces Gerda to be astonishingly brave as she searches for her friend across a harsh, frozen landscape. The weather provides the obstacle to be overcome. It tests her friendship. The Snow Queen becomes Winter personified and is defeated by the warmth of Gerda's love.

She looks almost cuddly

Marcus Sedgewick seems very fond of setting his novels in places where snow is a given. They are places of vampires and bears and treacherous ice. If you stay outside too long you will die and not only from the cold.

do not cuddle this bear

The best cover in the world

Revolver is like a snow dome: a taut thriller trapped in a world of cold. A perfect snow storm.

In After the Snow, by S.D Crockett the snow provides the dystopian landscape where everything has gone wrong. Where the odds against our hero are already stacked high and made worse by the deep snow she finds herself wading through. Here the snow is bleak and unforgiving. 

I'm gonna sit here in my place on the hill behind the house. Waiting. And watching. Ain't nothing moving down there. The valley look pretty bare in the snow. Just the house grey and lonely down by the river all frozen. 

The snow can force you inside and send you mad or make you see things that might or might not be there. It is the perfect setting for a ghost story as Dark Matter by Michele Paver so brilliantly and shiveringly demonstrates. The snow blinds the hero, Jack. “How odd, that light should prevent one from seeing.” he says. The snow controls his movements and eventually his mind and makes him see what should not be there. In the end, the snow subdues him.

Ah, but it's not all teen-angst gloom and doom. At the younger end, there are so many ways for snow to be the cheery, comforting, exciting and playful.

Summer fading, winter comes
Frosty mornings, tingling thumbs,
Window robins, winter rooks,
And the picture story-books.

Picture Books in Winter by Robert Louis Stevenson

Come in! It's lovely and warm inside!

The Finn Family Moomintroll sensibly hibernates during the Winter but when Moomintroll awakes during their long sleep, he finds a beautiful, alien world. It is silent and dark and scary to be alone but soon he meets Little My and Too-ticky and the snowy fun begins. But the Moomins being the Moomins this wintry world remains a haunting and challenging place.

Bear and Hare:Snow! by Emily Gravett celebrates the joy to be had with friends in the snow. 

We've all done it

One of my favourite friendships is that of Melrose and Croc by Emma Chichester. Here is the cold of no friends ...

.... before the warmth of friendship found and all wrapped up in Christmas - lovely.

I leave the obvious to last and I'll whisper it, Christmas. It seems that no Christmas is complete without snow. I agree. I want Christmas to have deep and crisp and even snow ...
so we can make snowmen.

So never mind that it's the end of Summer, Winter is coming and it brings ...

STORIES! 

This Black History Month, why not introduce
children to one of today’s most creative children’s book illustrators: Bryan Collier. A good place to start is with Collier’s latest, a picture-book biography that won the 2011 Coretta Scott King Award and a Caldecott Honor for its stunning illustrations.

Hill, Laban Carrick. Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave. illus. by Bryan Collier. Little Brown, 2010.

Hill’s spare, poetic text opens with the image of dirt. “But to Dave it was clay, the plain and basic stuff upon which he learned to form a life as a slave nearly two hundred years ago.” The simple words work with Collier’s art to focus on the growth and development of a unique artist. Known simply as Dave, this talented man went on to create about 40,000 pots, some of which are displayed in museums today. The concise biography gains heft and power with Collier’s textured, earth-colored watercolor/collage images. The illustrations feature Dave’s strong hands, especially in Collier’s four-paneled foldout showing how “Dave’s hands, buried in the mounded mud, pulled out the shape of a jar.” Collier clearly situates the artist’s remarkable achievement within the context of South Carolina’s lush green landscape and its cotton fields, worked by enslaved field hands. Living in a time when that state outlawed the education of slaves, Dave often wrote brief poems on his pots. The final illustration shows him picking up a stick to write a few lines that “let us know that he was here.” Facts about Dave’s life and art, a photograph of his work, and the author’s sources are included. This is a beautiful book that will lead to discussions on justice, slavery, and the nature of creativity.

Note: Collier is not only an outstanding artist, he’s a wonderful person to invite to your library. I invited Bryan to speak at my school library about six years ago, and he was EVERYTHING you hope for in a visiting author/illustrator: He was warm, professional, inspiring, enthusiastic, and engaging. It was a memorable day for children and teachers alike. Leave a comment if you’d like to hear more, or if you’d like to share your experiences with authors/illustrators. In my next post, I’ll feature another children’s book author who was a fabulous visitor, Carole Boston Weatherford.

A Sampling of Collier’s Outstanding Books

Freedom River by Doreen Rappaport. Jump at the Sun, 2000. Ages 9-12. Rappaport and Collier make a fantastic team: exemplary nonfiction prose and striking, thought-provoking collages. This thrilling, true story tells of a little-known hero: John Parker, an ex-slave who helped hundreds escape from slavery into freedom. Risking all, Parker crossed the Ohio River time after time to bring slaves from slave-owning Kentucky to the free state of Ohio. Rappaport zeroes in on one particular family Parker managed to free from the Shrofe plantation. She builds tension by repeating simple action verbs: “Run, run”; “Row, row”; “Listen, listen.

Blackaby, Susan. Brownie Groundhog and the February Fox. Illus. by Carmen Segovia. Sterling, 2011. Ages 4-7.

If you’re seeking a whimsical read-aloud for Groundhog’s Day, you’ve found it. Brownie Groundhog and the February Fox sparkles with wit and sly charm. Brownie is a clever groundhog that meets a hungry would-be predator on a cloudy February 2nd. The fox tells her, “Hold still…. I’m trying to eat you for breakfast.” Brownie’s flip response is that it’ s simply too late for breakfast. The two find they both hate to wait. Brownie suggests the fox work up an appetite by clearing the snow off the pond. Segovia’s humorous image shows the fox putting his fluffy tail to good use. Alas, after all that effort, it’s too late for lunch, says Brownie. Then the tricky groundhog leads the fox to a tree and winds her scarf around and around the fox, binding him to the trunk.

Brownie’s little heart is touched, though, as she hears the fox’s plaintive cries. She decides it’s time to share what’s in her basket: cocoa and cinnamon toast. The crumbs attract a robin — the first sign of spring! The two new friends leave for home, pondering their next adventure. The illustrator’s note describes how Segovia first conceived of this engaging character one winter as she sketched a groundhog. Her wintry palette, splashed with the fox’s red, is as refreshing as that impromptu picnic.

Enhance a snowy story with the cold facts, perfectly described and displayed in

Cassino, Mark and Jon Nelson. The Story of Snow: The Science of Winter’s Wonder.. Chronicle, 2009. Ages 4-9. You’ll be singing songs of snow, glorious snow after reading this snappy little informative book. Cassino and Nelson reveal the scientific nature of snow by using an accessible format featuring a brief fact in a large type size, then giving details in smaller text. Readers will learn of the three major types of crystals (star-shaped, plate and columnar), as well as other interesting facts. (It’s the molecular structure of water that creates the six-sided crystals, for instance.) The superb illustrations include both spectacular photographs that beg to be shared and Aoyagi’s ink and watercolor diagrams that show how a crystal develops from a speck of soil, pollen, or other substance, and then develops into an intricate six-sided beauty. Also noteworthy are the clear instructions on catching and examining snow crystals — just the trick for getting readers to venture outside to explore wintry wonders.

More and More Snow …

Alarcon, Francisco X. Iguanas in the Snow and Other Winter Poems. illus. by Maya Christina Gonzalez. Children’s Book Press, 2001. Fresh poems, often written with an unusual perspective, grace bright and beautiful pages showcasing poems in both Spanish and in English.

Andersen, Hans Christian. The Snow Queen. Trans. and retold by Naomi Lewis. Illus. by Christian Birmingham. Candlewick, 2008. Ages 8-10. Don’t miss Andersen’s most beautiful fairy tale, a source of inspiration for C.S. Lewis and other fantasy writers. Of the many versions available, Lewis’s is the one you want. This memorable wintry tale begs to be read aloud: “The cloak and cap were made of snow, and the driver ah, she was a lad