Toys Meet Snow: Being the Wintertime Adventures of a Curious Stuffed Buffalo, a Sensitive Plush Stingray, and a Book-loving Rubber Ball - Hardcover

Emily Jenkins is the author of numerous award-winning picture books, including Water in the Park, a Booklist Editors’ Choice and a Bulletin Blue Ribbon Book; Lemonade in Winter, a Publishers Weekly Best Children’s Book of the Year; and two Boston Globe–Horn Book Honor Books: Five Creatures and That New Animal. She also wrote the three chapter books in the Toys trilogy: Toys Go Out, Toy Dance Party, and Toys Come Home. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. Learn more at emilyjenkins.com.
 
Caldecott Medalist Paul O. Zelinsky is one of the most acclaimed picture book illustrators working today. He is the illustrator of Dust Devil by Anne Isaacs, a New York Times Notable Book and an Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Platinum winner. He received the Caldecott Medal for his retelling of Rapunzel and three Caldecott Honors for his illustrations in Rumpelstiltskin, Hansel and Gretel, and Anne Isaacs's Swamp Angel. He also illustrated the three chapter books in the Toys trilogy: Toys Go Out, Toy Dance Party, and Toys Come Home. Visit the illustrator at paulozelinsky.com.

PreS-Gr 2—Converting their wildly successful "Toys" chapter books (Random) into picture book format, Jenkins and Zelinsky have crafted a story ideal for the younger set, ramping up the adorable factor, while retaining the whimsical spirit of the originals. With their owner, the Little Girl, away for winter vacation, plush animals StingRay and Lumphy the buffalo, along with their pal Plastic the bouncy red ball, suit up (Lumphy sports a mitten on his head, and "dry-clean only" StingRay outfits herself in a plastic bag) and head outside for their very first snow day. Naively knowledgeable StingRay confidently offers her own explanations for the world around them ("'[Snow is] a blanket of peace over the world'"), but Plastic gently corrects her ("'No, it's frozen water.... I read it in a book'"). The three friends take part in their own amusingly endearing versions of typical snow day activities—building a snowman and making snow angels—before watching the sunset and returning inside. By turns witty and tender, the digitally rendered, rich, painterly illustrations vividly conjure up a startlingly stunning winter wonderland, conveying its awe-inspiring beauty from the toy's-eye perspective. Zelinsky affectionately imbues these characters with a warmth that never veers toward the cloying, and his use of light and dark as day slowly turns to evening is masterly. The text is soothingly lyrical in its simplicity; relying on only a few lines of dialogue, Jenkins effectively gives each of the characters their own voice. VERDICT Utterly enchanting; a perfect bedtime read.—Mahnaz Dar, School Library Journal