Snowballs (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "We'd been waiting for a really big snow, saving good stuff in a sack..." (more)
Key Phrases: light snow

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Only an artist as gifted as Ehlert (Nuts to You!) could take so well-worn a topic as building a snowman and make it as fresh as-well, new-fallen snow. Her faultless sense of design immediately engages the reader: tidy white circles dot the gray backgrounds of her collages; cut-paper birds show off their hand-painted wings; and an offscreen narrator exhibits a sackful of "good stuff"-birdseed, peanuts, corn kernels, etc.-accumulated in anticipation of the "perfect snowball day." Soon the narrator and invisible colleagues have constructed a whole family of snow people and their pets. Each member of the snow family receives a full spread, to be viewed vertically, and each is decorated with "good stuff." Birds (and squirrels) can feast upon some of the adornments; and bright textiles (a Bolivian hat, a Guatemalan purse) imaginatively intermingle with stones, twigs and such prosaic items as a luggage tag and a claim check. Factual information about snow is included as well as a spread featuring photos of 13 snow creations. Even jacket space is not wasted-the flap has a recipe for popcorn balls, while the back cover features a selection of snowy newspaper forecasts. A joyful and inventive book just brimming with its own "good stuff." Ages 3-8.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

PreSchool-Grade 2?Ehlert once again displays the innovative collage style that so vividly celebrated spring and summer in Growing Vegetable Soup (1990) and Planting a Rainbow (1988), and autumn in Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf (1991) and Nuts to You! (1993, all Harcourt). Here, she puts a creative twist on one of the favorite traditions of winter?building a snowman, or, in this case, a snow family, including pets. Children who believe snowmen must have charcoal eyes and carrot noses will be inspired by the unique adornments, for each creation here is decorated with the narrator's cache of "good stuff in a sack." Mom's hair is a Guatemalan belt; boy's nose is a toy compass; baby's arms are plastic picnic forks; dog's spots are a collection of buttons. As in the previous books, bold, rhyming text describes the simple pleasures of the season. The contrasting sensations of the crisp iciness and dreary isolation of winter are effectively created by placing the colorfully decorated white figures against a textured gray background on double-page vertical spreads. The background glows bright orange as the sun appears. Ehlert concludes her book with some winter facts, photographs of snowmen, and a recipe for popcorn balls. Another spectacular effort.?Kathy Piehl, Mankato State University, MN
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 4-8
  
• Hardcover: 40 pages
• Publisher: Harcourt Children's Books; 1st edition (November 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0152000747
• ISBN-13: 978-0152000745
• Product Dimensions: 11.3 x 10.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #59,472 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Creative Fun, January 27, 2000

By	Jane (Aurora Illinois) - See all my reviews

I'm a speech therapist with a prekindergarten at risk program. After reading this book with the children we made our own "snowballs" book. I've never seen 3 and 4 year olds maintain their attention to an activity for so long. We made our own snowmen with three large white circles, put them on the floor and the children could choose any items from our classroonm to make any kind of snowmen they could think of. We then photographed them with their snowmen and put the photos into a book. They were unbelievably creative. Since the activity did not require cutting and glueing it was easy for the children to manipulate and change things as their snowmen "came to life". Some of them used ideas from the book and "modified" a little. The language they expressed while creating was unbelievable! This book is such an excellent resource and motivation for parents in using those "junk" items around the house to help children be creative, and to encourage a natural relaxed way to enhance language development. The book is very engaging for young children. The language is short and simple and the pictures bright and interesting. I liked it so much I ordered one for my niece.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Snowball o' fun, July 12, 2004

By	E. R. Bird "Ramseelbird" (Manhattan, NY) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Snowballs (Paperback)

You walk into your first encounter with "Snowballs" with the vague sense that this is going to be yet another winter picture book containing figures made out of cut paper. And though you are well aware of Ezra Jack Keats's "The Snowy Day", you decide to give Lois Ehlert's book a go anyway. You're hoping you'll end up pleasantly surprised by what you may find. And you're in luck. You are.

In this tale of wintertime bird feeding, the author first poses a hypothetical question: "Do you think birds know when it's going to snow?". As if in answer, we view a pair of cardinals, one male and one female, as they devour some seeds. With the fall of a new snow, it's time to make some snow creatures. In a surprising two page spread we see a brown paper sack and plastic bags full of stuff. The author says that this is "good stuff" saved for this very occasion. The rest of the book then displays snowmen, women, children, pets, etc. made out of everything from strawberries to orange plastic fish. Almost every snow person has something in their make up that is delicious to the wild birds, and occasionally a brave birdy will fly into the picture to nibble on a sunflower seed necklace or munch on a popcorn laden body. At the back of the book are actual size photographs against a white background displaying objects that were featured in the snowmen's bodies earlier. Kids reading the book will enjoy trying to find the page that presented the Guatemalan purse or the Thai applique heart. Finally, the reader can find out more about snow itself. Two pages full of snowman photos (all goofy in their own different ways) surround a section entitled, "What makes it snow?". And for those of you that are lucky enough to be reading a hardcover edition of this tale, a recipe for popcorn balls appears on the back book flap.

Admittedly, when you get right down to it, this book is just a paper cut out book after all. But Ehlert has taken the liberty of combining your normal run-of-the-mill paper images with life sized photographs of certain objects. If you look on the cover, you'll see that the bird sitting on the snowman's head is all paper while the piece of popcorn it holds in its beak is a photograph. The result is fairly seamless. We can assume that some Photoshopping has been done here since a couple of these photographed items occasionally cast shadows on their snowpeople. This is a fairly well put together little book. It's difficult to combine stories where fun hunt and peck tales are combined with scientific facts. I'm almost tempted to categorize this book as non-fiction for all its interesting information. Even a quick glance at the back cover consists of thirteen newspaper accounts of snowy weather.

In a way, this book is like an educational "Where's Waldo?". Kids reading it will probably have more fun trying to find the objects listed in the back of the book than they will reading about water droplets and the process of evaporation. Just the same, any book that sneaks a little science into the average child's diet is a-okay by me. You may not find much in the way of plot in this item, but there?s enough originality and fun packed in "Snowballs" to keep the doldrums away.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars gherring, February 11, 2000

By A Customer

My 4 year old son loves this book. We first learned of the book in his preschool. He came home one day and talked about this book all afternoon. The next day we checked it out at the library and liked it a lot. The book is very creative and colorful which captures a young child's attention. There are so many different items that we could identify and learn. My son wants me to read this book many times throughout the day and frequently asks when it is going to snow. This is a great book by Lois Ehlert.