The snow whale Book

Horn Book March, 1997

Instead of a snowman, Laurie and her younger brother make a fantastic snow whale. As they build, Leo is full of questions about the snow and about whales. In addition to presenting a realistic relationship between brother and sister, the story offers a simple explanation of the water cycle. Gentle wintry drawings add life to the tale.



School Library Journal December 1996

PreS-Gr 2-A well-intentioned, but disappointing, attempt to provide a small amount of information on the hydrological cycle. As a brother and sister build a snow whale, the girl explains where snow comes from and where it goes when it melts. That night the whale disappears and the younger brother tells his weeping sister that it has returned to the ocean. The sweet but slight story may be confusing to literal-minded children. The sun that brings about the thaw is said to cause the snow sculpture to "glisten like silver," not specifically to melt. The accompanying illustration, in three panels, pictures water droplets, a river, and the ocean in which the gray-black tail of a real whale swims. In the final page of text, the children are seen at their window while the sister sobs, "Where has the whale gone?" Readers must deduce that the sun has caused it to melt. This process, central to the story, is not supported clearly enough by the pictures, although in the final one the white tail of a whale may be interpreted as melting into the grass or diving into the sea. This would be a novel addition to snowy-day story times if supported by nonfiction picture books such as Eleonore Schmid's The Water's Journey (North-South, 1990) and Mark Rauzon and Cynthia Bix's Water, Water Everywhere (Sierra Club, 1994).-Kate McClelland, Perrot Memorial Library, Greenwich, CT