Caldecott Monday: The Snowy Day
Dec. 5th, 2016 12:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerToday's Caldecott book is most weather appropriate: Ezra Jack Keats' The Snowy Day, which is about, well, a snowy day. (The Caldecott committee seems peculiarly besotted by snow. This is the third or fourth book that is all snow all the time, and I know there are at least two more coming down the list. Here is my advice for aspiring Caldecott illustrators: snow. Lots of snow)
We had this book when I was a child, and read it occasionally, although it was never a big favorite: I preferred illustrations with lots of lovely fiddly detail, like Jan Brett or Brambly Hedge. Can you look at the picture for at least an hour and still find new bits in it? Clearly a sign of A++ illustration.
The Snowy Day also has lovely illustrations, but in the opposite direction: all big simply blocks of color. In a touch that I find particularly delightful, almost all the colors are plain blocks - red for Peter's snowsuit, brown for his face (The Snowy Day is the first Caldecott book with an African-American protagonist) - except for the snow, which is white with a watercolor wash of purple and pink and blue. It's quite lovely.
We had this book when I was a child, and read it occasionally, although it was never a big favorite: I preferred illustrations with lots of lovely fiddly detail, like Jan Brett or Brambly Hedge. Can you look at the picture for at least an hour and still find new bits in it? Clearly a sign of A++ illustration.
The Snowy Day also has lovely illustrations, but in the opposite direction: all big simply blocks of color. In a touch that I find particularly delightful, almost all the colors are plain blocks - red for Peter's snowsuit, brown for his face (The Snowy Day is the first Caldecott book with an African-American protagonist) - except for the snow, which is white with a watercolor wash of purple and pink and blue. It's quite lovely.
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Date: 2016-12-06 10:08 pm (UTC)I did read the book yesterday! (Although our snow came through the day before yesterday.) Even the ones I've read before, I reread when their Caldecott Monday comes around. They're so short, I figure why not, and of course I see different/more things in them now that I'm an adult.