Snowmen All Year

In their third Snowmen title, the Buehners portray a gap-toothed boy's gleefully silly fantasies about playing with his lovable snowman year-round ("On summer evenings in the dark/ We'd chase some fireflies,/ Or sleep out in the quiet woods/ Beneath the starry skies"). On a stormy evening, the boy and his snowman play chess (the snowman's pieces are all miniature snowmen), and on Halloween, they go trick-or-treating (no costume required for the snowman). Mark Buehner's paintings delight in showing off the joyfully absurd situations and rapport between the boy and his friend, never more so than when the snowman does a nosedive into a backyard pool. Ages 3–6. (Oct.)