Book Club
For those members of the book club, we have read works that made us think, made us cry and stretched us tremendously as we work to be all that we can be to our children. So to lighten the tone, let us use this month to connect with our kiddos! This month’s book club book is the 1962 children’s picture book The Snowy Day by American author and illustrator Ezra Jack Keats. It features Peter, an African American boy, who explores his neighborhood after the season’s first snowfall. While in the Pre-K classroom this was one of my all time favs! I just purchased my daughter the collector’s version including the book and a stuffed Peter from Kohls for just $9!
Plot: Peter, The Snowy Day's protagonist, wakes up to the season’s first snowfall. In his bright red snowsuit, he goes outside and makes footprints and trails through the snow. Peter is too young to join a snowball fight with older kids, so he makes a snowman and snow angels and slides down a hill. He returns home with a snowball stashed in his pocket. Before he goes to bed, Peter is sad to discover the snowball has melted. The next day, he wakes up to tons more falling snow. With a friend, he ventures outside again.
Impact: Keats aimed to capture the wonder of a child’s first snowfall. While some critics questioned whether or not Keats––a white Jewish man––could rightfully tell the story of an African American child, most early reviews of the book focus on its collage illustrations instead of the protagonist’s race. However, as the Civil Rights Movement progressed, The Snowy Day became the subject of more scrutiny. One common criticism revolved around Peter’s lack of authentic African American culture and experiences. Nancy Larrick's 1965 article “The All-White World of Children’s Books” thought Peter’s mother resembled a mammy stereotype. Being at the center of race-based objections upset the author greatly. Keats maintained his character was based on his own mother, and the author, who was no stranger to discrimination himself, was puzzled by the idea of assigning a race to children playing in the snow.
Even though The Snowy Day was criticized for tokenism, Keats portrayed African American children with previously unseen positivity. Prior to The Snowy Day, the few children's books that featured African American children relied on negative stereotypes. Fan letters for Keats' book came from numerous African American activists, educators, and children who included their own collage artwork. One teacher told Keats that, for the first time, she watched as children selected brown crayons for their self-portraits. By the 1980s, critics began to recognize how far The Snowy Day had come from the stereotypical depictions in Little Black Sambo. A 50th anniversary edition of the book was published in 2011 and featured photos of the child who inspired Peter and a letter from Langston Hughes. Several contemporary honors and memorials also celebrate his vision of the universal human spirit.
Please join us as we explore the first snowfall of the season! As if we are not to busy all ready- you can use the link below to complete Snowy Day activities! https://www.ezra-jack-keats.org/lesson-plan/a-flurry-of-activities/
