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Summary
Summary
A young bunny wakes up to wonderful news: a snow day! School is canceled, and the morning and afternoon that follow are full of the games and excitement of snow. But the weather brings bad news as well, as his father is stranded in a faraway city. When will he be able to come home? Whatever the weather, whatever the season, you can open this book to experience the fun and the wonder of a snow day.
Author Notes
KOMAKO SAKAI wrote and illustrated The Snow Day , which received four starred reviews and was named a Kirkus Best Book. Her other books include Emily's Balloon . She lives in Japan.
Reviews (6)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Snow has been falling all night, and when a small rabbit awakens, he learns that kindergarten is closed, his mother can't go to the store, and his father's flight home has been canceled. "Mommy, we are all alone in the world," he announces solemnly, and even though he's clearly safe and sound in an apartment with all the modern comforts, readers will understand his bittersweet feelings of isolation and solitude. Sakai (Emily's Balloon) takes a very different approach in these pages: focusing more on setting and mood than characterization, she turns each illustration into a vivid snapshot (Mommy on the phone with stranded Daddy, an outdoor hug before the dash back indoors). Against a palette of grays and muted colors, she uses the yellow of the rabbit's jacket or boots to focus the reader's gaze, and layers the paints to suggest the intimacy and coziness of the hearth, the eerie but irresistible starkness of a landscape transformed by snow. Ages 3-5. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
No cars drove by. No one walked around. There was just the falling snow." In this Japanese import, a rabbit child spends a day with Mommy waiting for the snow to let up. Illustrations in subdued colors with touches of muted red and pale yellow complement the quiet text; together, they evoke the storm's mysterious atmosphere and the comforts of home. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Most books about snow days focus on the sheer exuberance of an unexpected day off from school. This story, as quiet as falling snow, evocatively chronicles the noticeable stillness when a little rabbit awakens to his mother's news that kindergarten's closed. Scrambling to the snow-splotched window, the boy looks wonderingly outside. So begins a very special day that has action and inaction in equal parts. There are many things that won't get done: Mommy is unable to go to the store; Daddy's flight is canceled, and he can't get home. But the day is more than waiting for the snow to stop. The boy plays cards with his mother, sneaks out on the balcony to make snow dumplings, and finally, just before bedtime, goes outside to make footprints in the unsullied snow. As precisely crafted as a snowflake, the words take on a weight and wonder in Sakai's thickly layered paintings. Half-page, full-page, two-page spreads, they use the grays of a winter's day and night to capture the feeling of being alone in an icy world and celebrating the rare moments of having the world to yourself.--Cooper, Ilene Copyright 2009 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
In "The Snow Day," a bunny child awakes to find the ground covered in white. BY DAVID BARRINGER A HAGGARD, bristly, undercaffeinated squirrel waits, palm open, for winter's first flake. What is snow? He isn't sure. Like a child, he can't wait to find out. Unlike a squirrel, he does wait. In "Waiting for Winter," the brilliant pencil work of the author and artist Sebastian Meschenmoser brings to sketchy, scratchy life a charming, idiosyncratic character. Squirrel is as unkempt and uncombed as a parent on Sunday morning, but as innocently impulsive as a child bouncing on the bed. Meschenmoser's energy of line imparts a barely controlled frenzy when Squirrel tears up and around a tree, trying to stay awake for winter. Squirrel's activity wakes Hedgehog, and their singing wakes Bear. If the sight of hulking, slouching old Bear doesn't make you laugh out loud, then you have no heart. These creatures are not slickly cute but refreshingly sympathetic. They do not ask to be admired. They look, as if they need a hairbrush - and a cup of hot chocolate. Searching for whatever is "white and wet and cold"- because, according to Deer, that is what snow is - the three animals discover a toothbrush, a tin can and an old sock. One can imagine children following along and, upon seeing toothbrushes falling from the sky, shouting, "That's not snow!" The animals possess childlike yearning for the first snowflake while remaining woodland creatures who don't know what tin cans and socks are. Kids can identify with the animals' desires while enjoying insider knowledge of the human, domestic world. As the animals stare at the sock on the ground, the first snowflake lands on Bear's nose. Just like that, the prickly, inhospitable forest is transformed by snowfall into a white playground. The vacant sky turns a deep nighttime blue. The animals make tracks, build a snowman and cuddle up in a cave to nap. Snow is change. And change is good. The world is beset by a snowstorm in Komako Sakai's "Snow Day," in which school is canceled, Mom stays home and Dad's return flight is delayed. Narrated by a bunny child, the story builds slowly but with a growing tension, reinforced by the rough, grainy illustrations. The bunny family inhabits a small thirdfloor apartment (the characters are bunnies, but they live and behave entirely like people). The grays and browns are muted and layered; the characters move beneath heavy brushwork and oil pencil. The art in "The Snow Day" is unpretty and mesmerizing. This world is dark, heavy, unsentimental and thick with sameness. The story begins with the bunny child waking in bed to her mother's news of the snowstorm. The apartment may be cold and gray, but the child is excited. To touch the new snow, she sneaks out onto the balcony, where she makes a snow dumpling. Alone in the apartment, with the father trapped in another city, mother and child stand on the balcony. "No cars drove by. No one walked around. There was just the falling snow." And then the bunny child says, "Mommy, we are all alone in the world." Wow. This is the bittersweet solitude of snow, it brings a new sensory experience, but also isolation and separation. The snow day alters the family's routines, and the child is free, finally, at night, to build snow monsters with her mother. But they are also lonely. They build three mounds of snow. It is only the end of the snowstorm that will bring the father home. After cranky creatures and existential storms, behold the uncomplicated gladness of the season. Here are the idealized colors of Christmas, in "The Christmas Magic," by Lauren Thompson, with pictures by Jon J Muth, where the watercolor illustrations are glowing and pure and nostalgic. Tree boughs are light in cottony mittens of snow, and in the middle of a snowy field glows a humble yellow house with a red door and a smoking chimney: Santa's house. The story, however, brings a twist to tradition. This Santa differs from the usual rotund elf: he is thinner, more human, with a pointy mustache. With Christmas on the way, Santa, like a gentleman farmer, gets to work. He calls the reindeer, feeds them, struggles to push open a huge barn door and readies the sleigh in the barn, which, with a workbench and tools, looks like a garage. Santa oils boots, knits stockings and trims his mustache. He is a bachelor living alone in the woods - no Mrs. Claus, no elves, no factory. He is an at-home Claus, elf-employed and as content as Thoreau. It's a charming conceit, this stripped-down Santa. If he were to steer his sleigh into a nearby village, hop out and distribute toys, the conceit would be taken to a pleasant kind of logical end. The "magic," however, grabs the reins and returns the story to a more familiar course. There is the impossibly large sack of toys for every child in the world, and the sleigh, pulled by flying reindeer, rising into the starry sky. The story ends with liftoff. It's a curious tale. The prose is as spartan as this new Santa, and the watercolor art is inviting, rich and warmly wintery, with the soft edges that artists love to impart to children's sugarplum dreams. The transformation of Santa from chubby C.E.O. to single guy with a barn is welcome and endearing. But the ground-tosky flight plan of sleigh and reindeer is a familiar transformation. Snow is good. Snow is complicated. And sometimes snow is just something pretty that melts too soon. David Barringer is the author of "There's Nothing Funny About Design."
School Library Journal Review
PreS-K-A five-year-old (rabbit) awakes one morning to discover that there will be no school, no daddy flying home today, and no going out outside-until the snow stops. Sakai clearly understands the predicament of being cooped up in an urban high rise: trying to stay entertained with games, constantly gazing out the window, being lured by the balcony. Her subdued palette and minimalist text suggest the blanketed sound produced by a heavy snowfall. Window-shaped frames with tight cropping contain the energy in the interior scenes; most exterior compositions bleed off the page-oh marvelous freedom! The layers of paint are applied to a black ground with a combination of wet and dry brushes, producing a convincing depth and texture; the darkness is a perfect foil for the cottony bright snowflakes. While the mother may appear overprotective about her bunny's health, she does relent when the snow stops, even though it is bedtime, and the pair enjoys a nocturnal adventure. The protagonist narrates in the first person; thus, the sentences are appropriately concise, yet with lovely rhythms and interesting details. (He ultimately makes snowballs and snow dumplings.) Atmospheric, tender, full of anticipation and satisfaction, this one will charm young children. In Leonid Gore's Danny's First Snow (S & S, 2007), a young rabbit, possessed of an active imagination, is encountering white creatures at every turn. Used together, the two books provide contrasting emotional and visual experiences of a universally beloved phenomenon (at least by young rabbits/children).-Wendy Lukehart, Washington DC Public Library (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Little rabbit wakes to find it's been snowing all night long. Excited about the snow day, the pajama-clad tyke bolts for the door, but Mommy doesn't want her little one to catch cold. Together they must wait for the storm to subside, and the dark-lit day is filled with a series of quiet, intimate moments: Little rabbit makes a snow dumpling on the apartment balcony; mother and offspring play cards to pass the time; the two silently watch the snow fall and feel the solitude of the empty streets. "Mommy, we are all alone in the world," says the meditative bunny as the snow swirls around them, creating a vast canvas of white and grey. Sakai's muted palette and grainy illustrations perfectly capture the quiet, opaque atmosphere of a snowy day. The cant of rabbit's ears and clever compositions subtly indicate the little one's emotional state: Tighter, denser compositions denote when rabbit is safe inside; open, expansive urban landscapes with ample negative space capture the freedom of playing in fresh-fallen snow. A reassuring story, perfect for a winter's day. (Picture book. 3-5) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
