We love children’s books that effectively tell a story through absurd means. Giraffes Ruin Everything was one recently that had the giraffe playing part of the child who was having a bad day or couldn’t do something well. Snow Beast Comes to Play by Phil Gosier picks up that mantle in this winter themed book that teaches lessons that every kid needs to learn.
It’s snowing in the city and Penny loves snow. She’s ecstatic and proceeds to stomp around, swing on the street light, walk with her dog and most importantly-avoid the snow beast.
We see snow beasts in the wild; they snore sometimes, complain too much or whine about things they don’t like. However, we see one snow beast that’s different, he’s not having a pity party, moping about or being grumpy, he just wants to play. So this snow beast goes into the city where he tried to make a new friend.
He knows his basic manners and tries to greet people by saying hello, but he only has one volume and that’s entirely too loud. Snow beast tries to help others, but he’s clumsy and ends up tipping over the things he’s trying to help out with.
Parents will recognize shades of Pout Pout Fish in the Snow Beast Comes to Play. These are just small similarities in how the snow beast mopes away, but in this book it’s much more playful, over the top and endearing. This book also doesn’t have the rhyming qualities of that book and as a result will have a slightly larger window of interest for children.
The art in Snow Beast Comes to Play is also worth mentioning. It has the same manic playfulness of snow beast’s personality. The illustrations make great use of the natural white space in the pages to make the city snowfall appear to mimic that of a whiteout.
Snow Beast Comes to Play is a very good, good-night book that early second graders and younger will enjoy. It’s a nice compendium in teaching kids that everyone is not the same and that it’s nice to play with others. The book is written by Phil Gosier and published by Roaring Brook Press.
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