There's No Business Like Snow Business: Snowmen At Work by Caralyn and Mark Buehner

ONE NIGHT I MADE A SNOWMAN,
THEN WENT INSIDE TO SLEEP.
AND WHEN I WOKE, I SAW MORE SNOW
HAD FALLEN SOFT AND DEEP.

I WENT OUTSIDE TO SHOVEL
BUT I SAW THE WALK WAS CLEAR.
NO ONE ELSE WAS OUTSIDE
BUT MY SNOWMAN STANDING NEAR.

Following that thought, the boy drifts into a snowflake flight of fancy: If his snowman shovels snow at night, what other night-shift jobs might snowmen have?

Well, snow removal is a natural, so to speak, shoveling and sweeping snow, operating snow blowers and snowplows. And what kinds of groceries would a snow-grocer sell? Frosted Flakes, frozen peas, and ice cream for sure. And the snowman and snowwoman bakery would specialize in fancy icing and frosted cupcakes. A snow pizza delivery man would bring--frozen pizzas, of course, and a snow dentist drills and fills the patient's smile with new lumps of coal And a snow teacher would be way cool, specializing in polar geography and spelling of Antarctica.

Author Caralyn Buehner and artist Mark Buehner have a lot of fun fantasizing about their snow people's snow business, with Caralyn's simple rhythmic quatrains and Mark's rotund snow workers at their jolly vocations, all with a big lumps of coals showing off their snowy grins. Mark Buehner dresses his frozen folks in bright plaid and striped woolly scarves and hats and even provides hidden figures in his illustrations--a cat, dinosaur, mouse, and even snowshoe rabbit, who appears on one page with two carrots for ears--to add extra panache to his pictures.

Their latest cool tale, Snowmen at Work (Dial Books, 2012), joins the Buehner's earlier snowpeople sagas, Snowmen at Christmas, Snowmen at Night, and Snowmen All Year.