50 Years of The Snowy Day

When The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats first came out in 1962, it broke the mold in a number of ways.  Besides the charming storytelling (who doesn’t share Peter’s child-like joy of the first snow?), the illustrations were unique enough to win a Caldecott Medal.

With the book’s 50th anniversary upon us, I invited Shanna Gonzalez of www.eyelevelbooks.com to share some of her ideas to help us appreciate the story.  She graciously agreed to lend us her review, which includes a summary of the book as well as links to resources such as edible snowflakes.  So, even if it’s a balmy 70 degrees in your town, get out your copy of the book and enjoy your own Snowy Day!

Note: if you’re a fan of The Snowy Day, you might be interested in Keats’s Neighborhood: An Ezra Jack Keats Treasury.  It includes The Snowy Day as well as other Keats’ stories such as Goggles!, Whistle for Willie, and Peter’s Chair.  Be forewarned, though, that the illustrations are smaller than in the original books.

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 The Snowy Day Board Book. Ezra Jack Keats. Viking Juvenile 1996, Board book, 28 pages, $3.79

Review by Shanna Gonzalez, www.eyelevelbooks.com

Rating:

The Snowy Day is a simple, elegant story which traces a young boy named Peter’s first experience with snow.  It is highly oriented to the physical senses — perfect for young children — and captures the wonder of this kind of early learning experience.  Peter discovers the snow’s ability to hold his footprints, its weight as it falls off a tree onto his head, its sculpting possibilities, and its slickness as he slides down a hill.  Then he returns to a warm home and a mother who welcomes him with a bath and listens to all of his adventures.

The book is notable not only for its freshness, its vivid tactile experience, and its healthy family context, but because fifty years ago it was one of the first picture books to picture a young African American as its protagonist.  For all these reasons it earned a Caldecott Medal and has become quite influential. It’s now widely used in school classrooms, and the author followed it with six more books about Peter.  Unlike most sequels, these are similar in mood and quality to the original.

This makes a very nice addition to a winter reading basket.  It’s probably best for preschoolers as a read-aloud, but it can also be a good fit for elementary students.  Here are some good resources to complement this story:

• An online version for young readers (without audio)
• An online version for non-readers (with read-aloud audio)
• The Curry School of Education in Virginia offers a lesson plan in pdf format with classroom exercises including printable cards showing story events for kids to put in order.  There’s also a photo of Mr. Keats and a brief biographical sketch.  The site also publishes a couple dozen other lesson plans for popular picture books.
• A mom-blogger’s recipe for edible tortilla snowflakes.
• Additional quality resources including lessong plans, games, crafts and more (pdf document) at Sheltering Arms for Kids
• Finally, enjoy Scholastic’s animated rendition below:

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