review: Snow Sounds

Snow Sounds written and illustrated by David A. Johnson.
Houghton Mifflin, 2006 (978-0618-47310-6) $16.00

Snow Sounds is a livelier story than its dreamy cover, in peaceful shades of blue speckled with snowy white, would suggest. Told entirely in sounds and pictures, it describes a boy's snowy winter morning, which begins with the "swoosh slush smoosh" of a snowplow outside, the only sound and motion around a house completely blanketed with snow. The day gets noiser as the boy gets ready for school ("flush") and more trucks work to clear a path outside for the school bus ("honk honk.") The boy himself has to "scoop scrape" his way from the door to the street. A watercolor speckled effect gives all of the pen & ink outlined pictures an attractive, muted, wintry feel, even in the busiest scenes. (3-8)