Kindergarten-Grade 2-Seeming to strive for a mood in which the magical and the surreal intersect, Sedgwick instead offers a slender premise: a boy wishes for a snowfall like the one in his snow globe. For no particular or apparent reason, it does snow, providing the illustrator with an opportunity to populate the large, heavyweight pages with myriad fantastical creatures. The illustrations have energy and ingenuity, but not enough to prop up the tedious text ("Something really magical is happening"). Transparent pages with globs of snow (more closely resembling raindrops on a car windshield) signal the beginning and end of the magic without adding to the story or the mood. Much ado about very little.-S. P.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
PreS-Gr. 1. British novelist Marcus Sedgwick (The Dark Horse, Floodland) makes his picture-book debut with A Christmas Wish, published in Great Britain as A Winter's Tale. In his lakeside home one warmish Christmas eve, a boy wishes it would snow outside like it does inside his snow globe. Magically, his wish comes true--his house is soon aswirl in an extraordinary snowstorm teeming with bears, dancers, gingerbread men, and skiers as the lake outside freezes into a festive ice rink. Translucent, frosted paper overlays, scattered with snow, convey a sense of increasing snowfall, while the scene beneath reveals wintery gusts led by a spike-headed snow wizard. In the morning, "The dancing stops, / the snow subsides / and the magic? The magic has just begun!" Bartram's illustrations contrast serene, old-fashioned neo-Rockwellian scenes with the more cartoonish star-spangled, snowy swirl of magic. The story is virtually nonexistent, but readers who have been transfixed by the tiny world inside a snow globe may be transported by this visual winter fantasy. Karin Snelson
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