I have given away more copies of The Snowy Day by Jack Ezra Keats than any other book I’ve ever read. And even though my early reading was dominated by Dr. Seuss, it is The Snowy Day that has stuck in my imagination.
I grew up in a world of snowy days, and in a time and neighborhoods where children could go out and wander around in the snow for hours. I grew up bundled in a snowsuit.
In fact, a famous childhood story finds me, age 6, and my sister, age 4, going off in the snow, far from home. I’m sure we were going to my grade school, Hickory Hill School in Park Forest, a place far enough away from our home that I had to stay through lunch even though there wasn’t a cafeteria. In a park on the way, we encountered two boys, young bullies, much less hampered by their winter clothing than we were (think the little brother in A Christmas Story). They threw snow at us and pushed us down and I remember looking over and seeing the littler one jumping on my sister as I lay powerless on the ground. I went home and obliterated that little boy’s face in my yearbook with a brown crayon.
We lived in a townhouse, but The Snowy Day introduced me to the idea of apartment buildings. Children could live in apartment buildings. That was quite an idea. I loved the view of the blocky buildings outside Peter’s upper floor window.
I also loved his pink tub. I loved the footprints he left in the snow, and the path made by his stick. Every page was beautiful.
I knew you couldn’t keep a snowball in your pocket.
And it was a terrible dream that could melt all the snow overnight.
But it was wonderful for a mother to help take off your cold, wet clothes and get you into a warm bath.
On winter mornings, I was lucky to have a sister sharing my bedroom, and a brother down the hall, who would go out together with me into the deep, deep snow.
