From School Library Journal
PreSchool-Grade 2–Charlie and Lola return in another engaging story that perfectly captures a child's anticipation of the first snow of winter. Big brother Charlie takes his sister out to frolic in a world that has all gone extremely white! Lola and their friends make snow angels, go sledding, and build a snowman (and snow doggy) before returning home for hot chocolate. The next day, Lola, disappointed to find that the snow has melted, wonders why it can't always be there. Charlie compares snow to birthdays–they wouldn't be special if they happened every day. He takes his sister on an imaginary tour of the Arctic, where polar bears swim, and the Antarctic, where smartly attired penguins look like they are going to a party. She realizes that it would be too cold there for her to go swimming or to wear her stripy party dress. Back home, Charlie surprises his sister with a memento from the previous day's storm–a teeny weeny snowman who lives in the freezer. This book employs creative use of space, color, texture, drawings, and mixed-media collage that perfectly match Lola's free spirit and offbeat manner of speaking. The large, easy-to-read text follows the energetic rhythm of the story, using varying margins and fonts and swirling around the pictures. Read this exuberant story along with Uri Shulevitz's
Snow (Farrar, 1998) and Nancy Elizabeth Wallace's book of the same title (Random, 2002) to get children primed for the season.
–Martha Simpson, Stratford Library Association, CT Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
*Starred Review* In
But Excuse Me That's My Book (2006), Charlie had to deal with his little sister Lola's fondness for a particular library book. Now Lola is enthralled with snow. When "the man on the weather" predicts snowfall, Lola spends half the night looking out the window, waiting impatiently to make snow angels, slide down hills, and build a snowman. Too soon, however, the snow melts, and Lola is bereft, leaving Charlie to explain that snow is special and snow every day could be a drag. Here, Child takes the siblings around the globe to the Antarctic, where constant snow seems less appealing. Fortunately, Charlie has kept a little snowman in the fridge at home. Lola's exuberance is made manifest on every page. Child puts a simply shaped, almost scrawled pair of siblings against jelly-bean-bright backgrounds, and ingeniously decorates everything with collage. A highlight of this stylistic art is the picture of Charlie and Lola looking out a window (the house seems to be made of floorboard) at huge paper snowflakes. The fun can be literal, too; when Charlie takes Lola around the globe, the globe in the collage is the kind that sits on a desk. Good book; great kids. Try this with children who like Marie-Louise Gay's Sam and Stella books.
Ilene CooperCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
