*Animals in the Snow by Margaret Wise Brown (1995) is a gorgeous early reader. There’s simply no contest between the luscious illustrations by Carol Schwartz and the minimalist digital art I often see in current publications. I’ve wallowed in the lovely paintings of many dated children’s books, so perhaps I write these words about this particular book because it is representative. The cover art beckons: a puppy, squirrel, rabbit, and cat run through snow and a bird flies closely overhead. They are framed by evergreens decorated in snow. In the distance are bare brown branches. Falling snow dots the entire scene. We can imagine the joy of young children playing in the snow. The text is highly repetitive. Maybe proponents of the twenty-first century science of reading would modify it. But the text in this book is secondary to the pictures. It’s as if the publisher didn’t want a wordless book, so Brown gave them a little something. Thank goodness people share these older picture books and don’t throw them away.
