WAITING FOR SNOW

Small woodland animals try to conjure snow.

Badger’s frustrated because even though it’s winter, there’s nary a snowflake. His friend, philosophical Hedgehog, counsels that snow will come “in snow’s time,” the same way crocus bulbs sprout every spring and “the sun comes back every day”—but Badger can’t bear to wait. He drags pots and pans from his house and bangs on them. It doesn’t summon snow, but it does bring three more friends: Rabbit, Vole, and Possum. Together they throw pebbles at the sky (“Pebbles rained down. Snow didn’t”) and dance a snow dance in couples (“They stomped and rocked. They bopped and boogied. They whirled and swirled”). The animals are anthropomorphic—using bowls and spoons, writing on slates with chalk, knitting, playing banjo and fiddle, and paring potatoes—yet they are for the most part unclothed and can sleep outdoors when they choose. With soothing, low-saturation colors and soft crosshatchings, Liwska subtly blends outdoors and indoors: an indoor disco ball references stars, while a classroom rug looks very grasslike. Delicate pencil lines show scenes as simultaneously earnest and funny, as when Badger calculates snow at an outdoor desk while Hedgehog runs an overhead projector or Badger’s bedroom—he’s wearing his pajamas backward to induce snow—with a toy animal and bookend turned toward the wall and a lamp upside-down.

Snow can’t be forced, but this will help ease the wait.