From School Library Journal
PreSchool-Grade 2-A little girl bundled in her red coat, striped scarf, and blue mittens follows mysterious tracks in the snow, wondering who made them. She goes out across the yard, along a frozen pond, over a snowy bridge, and into the woods. Ultimately, the trail leads her home and she realizes that she made the mystery tracks the day before. The gentle, rhyming text makes an ideal read-aloud, and young listeners will chime in on the repeated phrases. The soft-focus, colored-pencil illustrations portray a small Asian girl exploring her safe world, but a world transformed by the fresh snowfall. The child happily makes angels in the snow and slides down a small hill on her adventure. The cozy ending, complete with tea and cookies in a snug, warm kitchen, completes this tender celebration of the season.
Shawn Brommer, South Central Library System, Madison, WICopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
PreS. "Just outside my window, / There are tracks in the snow. / Who made the tracks? / Where do they go?" Keen to find out, a little girl follows the tracks throughout her rural neighborhood. Yee cleverly lets the white of the paper stand in for snow, rendering the other elements in soft colored pencils and an almost pointillistic style: ice-blue footprints; woodland flora and fauna in muted browns and grays; and the little girl herself, whose bright-red hooded coat (reminiscent of Peter's in
The Snowy Day) adds cheer to the otherwise muted scenes. The singsong text, however, isn't quite as effective; certain lines ("Is that a hippopotamus?") serve the demands of the rhyme scheme more than they advance the story. Even so, this unassuming book will be enjoyed for its petite trim size, its wintry charm, and the gently humorous solution to its small mystery: the girl finally realizes that the tracks were made yesterday by someone she knows very well--herself.
Jennifer MattsonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
