On "SNOW"

A perfect discussion of this great book would be like the painting "White on White" a blank to consider as a metaphor for snow, that's really what the book is constructing, a paper representation of a first snowfall.

And it would fit Shulevitz to leave a blank page for "Snow," I think he might "get it."
As a teacher, I have several of his books and each has a particular quality I like to call "internal space," borrowing from the language of my painting training.
They are creations of places that seem frozen and afar, a kind of wonder always over takes me as I read Shulevitz' books to kids. The reader becomes superfluous somehow. It's a very hard thing to find words for, his stories connect in another place, beyond text, "in place." In general if you are a teacher of young children, children coming from a second language as I am, working on the construct of "the setting" with young children, his books will allow you to focus on this in a way where internal images can be discussed. 1st graders after reading this book always tell me they can "go inside" his spaces and find a "reality. Of course they say this in their own way. "I like to see this one, read it some more." "I want to go to the snows, can we read this one today." Or my favorite, " I sees snow when you reads, I really do." But that is always the voice of Gabriela who gots in very big trouble Friday for being too bossy and not "listening" nicely.


Lately I have spent a great deal of time thinking about reality.
Thinking of what that means, what we are often doing in teaching is avoiding deep discussions of our and other realities. Ours and others. Going inside of writing and images and finding a "reality" is a unique construct to work to build with students. It is the heart of literature pieces use in classrooms, something I see being stripped away now. It's unique to talk about with students and this author allows you to go to a "there." If for no other reason I think this thread is one that should exist in classrooms to help bind together a kind of understanding of purpose, meaning, awareness of other's understandings, I suppose it is an expanded sense of literacy not just a phonetic literacy. This is cultural, historical artistic,political, psychological, individual, human and I suppose when I work, literature is the place I go to talk about our "understandings" as plural as that is, and as rich as this makes us as a people. It is there we go to a great mind's eye for looking at our lives and the world we might wish to transform. Build a new education from this place, not economic bean counting.

And in SNOW the there is not a there of this earth, it is a there entirely of literary creation. As a teacher of children in a second language I notice they connect to these images and created worlds in books. Really connect. With "SNOW" they had me read it twice and insisted on writing poems. Insisted. It was a poetic step-stone. Now I wish to be heard, now I have something to share too.

As for "Snow" it is the telling of adult and child perspectives. In snow. When I grew up in West Virginia as flakes fell my brother and I would go out to see, to see if they were sticking, praying of course for their layering our world. Crying out as we first saw them melt, folded over our radio predictions and armed with thermometer out the door we went. I introduced the thermometer with this story Friday. And the rest of the day we charted a fall in temperature from 61 to 43. It was a perfect way to begin to think about "cold". Mum and Dad in my childhood days would of course sit so far from our child perspectives, praying to be left in peace. Their world of inconvenience so much a part of having to deal with it in traveling to work. Two views I now "understand" and now share out with children.


Here in the story a boy, who remains just "a boy", watches the flakes and listens to the adults predict the possiblity of getting a blanket of snow. For my students who live coastal in CA with no possiblity of snow, despite the current snap of cold killing our beautiful tropical plants, these children need to read of this wonderous time in order to experience it. That is such a thing for me to create for them. I find it remarkable to have to construct it through literature. It's amazing. It invites a teacher sharing of experience. I cannot overstate the beauty of the book's illustrations as they show the snows arrival to this world, he is, page by page unfolding this, the place "somewhere" which by "reading" the image grows into an internal space place.
Ah....he is so good.

Snow is a purity so many forget, humans need this. It places us in the world, stills our power, reminds of nature, is other worldly. It is transformative. And this text goes to that. Children know weather. It is real to them in a way I like to call a naive understanding. They are feeling "SNOW" like poets..

When reading this book I always fold and cut snowflakes with the kids. This year no child had ever done this before in my room. Not a single one. There is a champion book of snowflake cutting patterns in a Scholastic book. It's remarkable to cut snowflakes with 1st graders, study the crystal forms from internet images, look inside this text to see the images in "Snow" of snowflakes, gentle, beautiful forms to grace the classroom windows. I really can't imagine not using this book it is that much a part of my program with 1st graders here in Oxnard at Hathaway......
Snow comes. It transforms. It is the silence and white blanket. Beautifully celebrated here in his book. Get SNOW.

And now some thoughts from children's voices...(I mostly corrected spellings)

snows white
and it can bite me on my toes
because it can it does

Snow said my Mom
Falls on the ground
But we don't see it here
So we read it and see it there

Up a hill
Over the field
I pulled a sled
In the snow
So I could
Slide

Yous are sos lucky if you have snows
We dont
We have a new Vons my Mom took me too
I saws a snowman I wanted there
It costs too much

Flake fall
Snow drops
Watrer freeze
Wind blows

I want to see the snow
I want to ski down a hill
I want to snowboard too
But we jive here in the sun