★★★★★ 5
Wonderful classic
Format: Board book
This book challenges the assumption that more is better, bringing back memories of my own easy-going childhood. Ezra Keats is remarkable in his ability to create a story that so many people can relate too and the books illustrations also manage to pull you back into your own childhood memories and moments of wonder at snow. His artwork is spare yet the pictures burst with brilliant color and expression. In many of the pictures, Peter lacks facial features except his eyes, but Keats manages, with the angle of his head and the composition, to convey feeling.
The text, similarly economical, is made up of just enough words to tell the story -- none of them too hard for a young reader to sound out or for a young listener to understand -- and they are vivid words used powerfully, often rhyming or repeating. The result is that kids (and parents too!) can settle into Peter's snowy world. A bonus in this sparkling story is the African-American main character -- an all-too-rare occurrence, still, in children's literature. I try to expose my child to a diverse array of characters in his story books and am still left disheartened when I return from the book store because, unfortunately there really are too few choices that are quality stories that both the adult and child can enjoy reading. This is one of those books. The story is engaging and still simple enough that a child can follow along.
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Reviewed in the United States on May 21, 2016
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