Snow Much Fun!

Snow Much Fun is a beautifully illustrated book that covers a theme familiar to many families - getting outside and having fun even in the midst of the cold and snow. The story follows three friends, two who are incredibly excited about partaking in all the outdoor winter activities they can squeeze in and one who seems to prefer warm cocoa by the fire.

The story, itself, is a bit lacking. It seems to be centered on forcing the indoor-loving animal named Willow to spend more time outside with her two friends, Ginger and Berry. Little attention is paid, however, to getting Ginger and Berry to be a bit more accommodating of Willow’s desire to spend time inside. All’s well that ends well as, ultimately, Willow does find an outdoor activity she enjoys (the always popular in Canada sport of hockey comes to the rescue!), but it would have been nice to see Ginger and Berry more explicitly recognize that spending time inside with their friend can also be rewarding.

The repetition of ‘snow’ being substituted for the word ‘so’ loses a bit of its appeal after the third or fourth time, but, other than that, the language is appealing. Young readers will appreciate some of the fun made-up vocabulary, such as ‘skim-skimmering’ to describe the three friends skiing. A simple rhyming scheme is used mostly consistently throughout the book, something which always makes a book fun as kids try to guess what an upcoming rhyming word might be.

Where the book does shine is in its lovely artwork by Toronto-based Sabina Gibson. Rendered through photographs of adorable felt animals and miniature sets of indoor and outdoor scenes, the attention to detail found in the designs is amazing, and the felt material is particularly well- suited for the three woodland creatures that are the focus of the story.

All in all, Snow Much Fun is a sweet book that is appealing for those of us with many a long cold winter day ahead of us, and it acts as an encouragement that all of us need to get outside and enjoy the snow and cold in any way we can.