A CHRISTMAS WISH

The universal childhood fascination with snow globes is the theme of this Christmas story with minimalist text and a major dose of surrealist art. On Christmas Eve, a boy who lives near a lake in a warm climate wishes “it would snow like it does in my snow globe.” Two semi-transparent pages introduce a fantasy sequence in deep tones with snowflakes, a gigantic snowman, and strange, snowy creatures swooping into the boy’s world overnight, with the wild crowd skating on the now-frozen lake. With morning, reality returns and two more semi-transparent pages return the story to the boy and his snow globe. The enigmatic conclusion shows the huge snowman remaining in both the snow globe and the still-frozen lake, and the boy’s Christmas present of a pair of skates is waiting. The final page promises that “the magic has just begun!” and the boy is skating around the snowman. But the reader must decide if that is happening outdoors, in the snow globe, or in the boy’s imagination. (Picture book. 4-7)