'S No Day Like a Snow Day: Snowy Day by Anne Milbourne

Author Anna Milbourne takes up the familiar subject of a play day in the snow and manages to carry it off with both charm and factual content in this outing in the Usborne Picture Book series. Illustrator Elena Temporin fits her jaunty, bright illustrations to her subject, laying out each page in a circular design which subliminally suggests snowmen, snowballs, and swirling snowflakes as the three kids and dog in her thin-blackline drawings dash and play in the new snowfall.

Unlike that Ezra Jack Keats' classic with a similar title, Snowy Day (Picture Books) doesn't stint on the basic science of snow.

"Have you ever wondered what makes it snow?

High in the clouds raindrops freeze into icy flakes of snow. Every snowflake has six points, but each looks different from the next--some like teeny-tiny flowers, some like frosted stars--soon thousands of pretty snowflakes dancing through the night."

Tossing snowballs, rolling snowballs into snowmen, and making snow angels, the children follow trails made by several woodland animals into a grove of trees, where they observe how birds, rabbits, and squirrels shelter in the trees, and fish and frogs conserve energy beneath the icy pond.

"Follow the trail into the trees and you'll find a quiet place. A family of sleepy squirrels rest in a hollow, and nestled in a fir tree's thick branches a little bird is keeping warm."

As the afternoon sun begins to melt some of the snowfall from the tree limbs and sunny ground, the children make their way home, wondering if they will see the snow again. But when they wake in the new morning, they find light snow has covered their footsteps and painted the world white once more.

This smooth and poetic presentation of winter's way with the world is a pleasant introduction to the science and the story of snowfall for preschoolers. Other books in this series include The Rainy Day and The Windy Day (Picture Books).