Welcome back to Smarty Books, a monthly newsletter featuring smart and sweet picture books to inspire young readers. (3 minute read)
A brief update before we dive into Snowballs. I returned to work this month! Being on leave was wonderful—lots of baby time and snuggles. I also turned in the final manuscript for my memoir-in-verse, Today I Left the House: Diary of a First-Time Mom. As I pivot to working again and preparing for a book launch, Smarty Books is going on hold for a bit. If you’d like to hear more about my new poetry book for moms and be included in opportunities to join the launch team(!), sign up for updates here.
As a thank you for reading Smarty Books this year, I’m including a printable Christmas coloring booklet I created for my daughter using the kindergarten sight words “I” and “have” and the numbers one-ten. This could buy you a few minutes as a winter break activity : ) Print it double-sided with short-edge binding.
Click here for the version with traceable number words.
Click here for the version for pre-writers.
Up in Wisconsin, we’ve already had snow twice, which my kids LOVE. Today’s book is Snowballs by Wisconsin-native author-illustrator, Lois Ehlert.
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Summary
In Snowballs, an unseen narrator and family build a family of snow creatures and decorate them with objects from the outdoors and around the house. They make parents, a baby, and even a cat and dog. Then the snow creatures melt.
Why Snowballs is great
Snowballs is a feast for the eyes. Ehlert’s collage art, painted papers and found objects are so engaging.
Play I-spy on each of the pages and take turns finding things.
Talk about what the different snow creatures’ features are made of. What is the hair made of? What are the eyes and noses made of? What are the ears made of?
Make your own! Draw a circle on paper and build different snow creatures’ faces with objects from around your home like buttons, dried fruits, beads, popcorn, and leaves from outside.
If you place a hold on this book, try to get the hardcover because it’s nice and big. It’s also available as a board book, but the reading experience is better with bigger pages. Snowballs was first published in 1995 by Harcourt Brace.
Lois Ehlert Bio
Most people are familiar with Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, one of the most popular books Lois Ehlert illustrated. She wrote and illustrated dozens of books during her long career.
I’ve summarized Lois Ehlert’s description of her creative upbringing and her journey to illustration from this Reading Rockets interview. Also check out The Scraps Book: Notes from a Colorful Life for this story in picture-book format.
Lois Ehlert grew up in a home of creatives. Her mother was a seamstress, and her father was a woodworker. Her parents set up a special art table for her so she always had a place to go when she had an idea.
She loved novelty and experimentation in her work. She described each of her books as having their own personality. She used varied sizes and shapes for her books and sometimes, as in Snowballs, the reader must turn the book up and down.
When asked about why there aren’t any people in her books, she responded, “You’re the person.” Her books are meant to engage to the reader and require a level of participation. They are meant to inspire the child and the adult to respond with “We could do that.”
Lois Ehlert passed away in 2021.
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Thanks for reading! Happy holidays to all!! And happy reading until we meet again!
—Sarah White
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