OUR SNOWMAN

Goffstein's second book in gently detailed pastels brings reverence to a familiar childhood event. The simple text evokes a childhood memory of a brother and sister building the first snowman of the season, only to lament its loneliness out there in the yard ("We never should have made him"), a problem heartwarmingly solved when father and sister build him a companion after supper. The gray-framed illustrations glow in soft brightness, their details fuzzy, a technique most effective in the outdoor scenes, caught as if through a snowfall. This distancing enhances the elegaic nature of the story, as do the many concrete descriptions related as a child would remember them. It's made to be shared and blended with other memories on long winter evenings.