When The Snow Goes: Bear and Mimi in the Snow by Janee Trasler

WHEN MIMI TRIED ON HATS TO HAVE TEA WITH THE QUEEN, BEAR WAS THERE.

Mimi actually does almost nothing without her little blue Bear. So when she ventures out into the new snowfall, she pretends to ice skate in the Olympics, tips a teacup with royalty, and finally creates a scary snow monster, all with Bear at hand. But when she notices that it's getting dark and turns to go inside...

BEAR WAS NOT THERE.

She looks everywhere she has been in the snow, but there's no Bear anywhere! At last when Mimi has to go inside and go to bed, sadly there's no Bear there with her either.

The next morning Mimi bundles up to go search for Bear some more. But outside her door, everything is not as it was before.

Her championship ice rink is gone, with nothing but a muddy pond where it had been. Where she had worn her fancy hat for the Queen's high tea, there was just a muddy spot. Her hat was not there either. Mimi is sad. Where the hairy snow beast had stood tall in the snow, there was no snow at all.

BUT BEAR WAS THERE.

When the snow goes, what's below shows, in Janee Trasler's Mimi and Bear in the Snow (Feiwel and Friends, 2014), and like the sensible little rabbit girl she is, Mimi makes sure that in the future Bear travels inside her backpack--so that wherever she goes, Bear goes, too.

Janee Trasler's little snow story is told in simple, straightforward text, with only a few lines in Mimi's face revealing her feelings. But young readers, who likely know what it's like to lose a favorite toy, will spot when and where Bear makes his disappearance and love being ahead of the story all along. Trasler's rounded figures and simplified snowscape fit perfectly within the matter-of-fact narration, making this one a sweet and satisfying snowy day tale for preschoolers, a story for youngsters not quite ready for the step into fantasy in Raymond Briggs'classic story of The Snowman.