★
REVIEW TEAM FAVORITE
The Snowy Day
By: Ezra Jack Keats
Medal Winner
Reviewed by: Sandy Hall
Recommended age: Ages 4-8
Also read and recommended by: Christine Kallner, Sherry Early
Today is a sweltering, muggy, high-heat day in the South where I live. That's why I chose to review The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats today. The story and illustrations bring back to my memory those wintry days in my growing up years in upstate New York. Waking up to snow was a wonder! A delight! My siblings and I couldn't wait to get outside to play, build snowmen, have snowball fights, and go sledding. This book captures that delight as Peter experiences playing in the snow. Keats' illustrations are simple collages using various media like paint, fabric scraps, and even magazine clippings. Enjoy this book by Keats and many others he wrote and illustrated.
Mr. Rabbit and the Lovely Present
By: Charlotte Zolotow
Illustrated by: Maurice Sendak
Honor
NOT REVIEWED
The author of such classics as DO YOU KNOW WHAT I'LL DO?, BIG BROTHER, and OVER AND OVER needs no introduction. Neither does her collaborator Maurice Sendak, who has illustrated so many of today's best-loved, as well as most distinguished, books for children.
The heroine of their book has a problem. And at first it does not look as though Mr. Rabbit is going to be much help in solving it. For everyone knows you cannot give your mother a red roof, a yellow taxicab, a green caterpillar, or a blue lake for her birthday. But then all the little girl had said was that her mother liked red, yellow, green, and blue—and so Mr. Rabbit was trying.
How he and the little girl come up with the absolutely perfect present makes a story the youngest reader will love. And the wondrously bright full-color pictures will bring hours of pleasure to readers and lookers of all ages.
From the dust jacket
The Sun is a Golden Earring
By: Natalia M. Belting
Illustrated by: Bernarda Bryson
Honor
NOT REVIEWED
Some say the sun is a golden earring; others say the winds are made by great birds flapping their wings. Such were the thoughts of men when they first looked in Yonder at the heavens. Out of this wondering came rich and poetic images, collected here from around the world by an eminent folklorist, who has woven these sayings into a testament of man’s eternal fascination with the firmament.
Bernarda Bryson is a rare artist who has captured the spirit of this extraordinary collection with sensitivity. The sayings men dreamed around the stars, the lightning, the winds are subtly yet brilliantly reflected in her drawings.
From the dust jacket
