Snow Day

Youngsters will be caught up in this wordless picture book right from the eye-catching snow-white front cover, overlaid with the spot-varnished images of a carrot nose and two coal eyes. Peddle's impressive debut pairs delicate, spare watercolors with a clever design to chronicle the beginning and end of a snowman in a single day. The artist opens with a white foreground and a tiny figure of a child below the yellow horizon. On subsequent pages, shadows lengthen as the child builds a snowman, the sun sets and the snowman stands alone against a deep blue sky filled with holiday-card snowflakes. At the turn of the page, the snowman perches atop the planet in a field of stars. The spaceship view disappears when dawn arrives, and finally, all that remains is a smudge of stick arms, pieces of coal and a carrot on a page as pristine as the snow itself. Peddle conveys a strong sense of narrative in the visual echoes he sets up. For instance, as the boy assembles the two bottom spheres of his snow creation, the head-sized noon sun appears to complete the picture. This playful configuration sets the stage for the later image of a one-dimensional snowman engulfed in the sun's halo. His witty approach allows children to enjoy the natural progression of the snowman's fate. Ages 3-up. (Jan.)