Reviews for Once upon a winter day [electronic resource].

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

When a child’s mother is too busy for stories, he follows some tracks in the snow and makes up his own. Milo’s angry face as he stomps out the door speaks volumes about his disappointment. But it isn’t long before he spies a mouse’s tracks under the birdfeeder and begins a journey of discovery. At the winterberry bush, Milo observes that all the red berries are gone and finds a single feather; “What had happened here?” A page turn allows readers time to guess: A flock of cedar waxwings (identified on the endpapers along with tracks and a few animals that readers will have to look very closely to find) flies over the tiny mouse, a single red berry falling to the ground. This pattern repeats, with Milo finding fallen hemlock branches (porcupines), clods of dirt (grazing deer), a smooth trail to the creek (otters), and wing prints in the snow (a narrow miss with a red-tailed hawk). The call of “Dinner time!” has Milo following the trail back to a hole in the snow by his house; a cutaway view shows a second mouse waiting under the woodpile. As Milo lays his treasures—a feather, an acorn, a hemlock branch, and a fish skeleton—on the table, he declines his mother’s offer of stories: He’s got one to tell instead. Both have pale skin and straight, dark hair. Pair with some children’s nature guidebooks to ignite imaginations. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10.5-by-19-inch double-page spreads viewed at 30.1% of actual size.) Nature tells good stories if we only get outside and look around. (Picture book. 4-8) Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.


Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

When a childs mother is too busy for stories, he follows some tracks in the snow and makes up his own.Milos angry face as he stomps out the door speaks volumes about his disappointment. But it isnt long before he spies a mouses tracks under the birdfeeder and begins a journey of discovery. At the winterberry bush, Milo observes that all the red berries are gone and finds a single feather; What had happened here? A page turn allows readers time to guess: A flock of cedar waxwings (identified on the endpapers along with tracks and a few animals that readers will have to look very closely to find) flies over the tiny mouse, a single red berry falling to the ground. This pattern repeats, with Milo finding fallen hemlock branches (porcupines), clods of dirt (grazing deer), a smooth trail to the creek (otters), and wing prints in the snow (a narrow miss with a red-tailed hawk). The call of Dinner time! has Milo following the trail back to a hole in the snow by his house; a cutaway view shows a second mouse waiting under the woodpile. As Milo lays his treasuresa feather, an acorn, a hemlock branch, and a fish skeletonon the table, he declines his mothers offer of stories: Hes got one to tell instead. Both have pale skin and straight, dark hair. Pair with some childrens nature guidebooks to ignite imaginations. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10.5-by-19-inch double-page spreads viewed at 30.1% of actual size.)Nature tells good stories if we only get outside and look around. (Picture book. 4-8) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.


Horn Book
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Milo's mother is too busy to read him a story, so the boy reluctantly heads out to play in the snow. Under the bird feeder near their house, he sees the footprints of a mouse and follows them. He stops at a winterberry, notices that its berries are all gone, and finds a single feather atop the shrub ("What had happened here?"). Following the footprints into the forest, he sees branches from a hemlock tree on the ground ("Why have they fallen like autumn leaves?"). By the time his mother calls him in for dinner, Milo has found loose clods of dirt (perhaps animals were digging for acorns), mysterious smooth runs in the snow leading down to a creek, a spot where the mouse's footprints were disturbed ("Had the bird calling in the distance swooped to the snow?"), and finally a small hole in the ground leading, he posits, to the mouse's home. Back in his own home, Milo's mother offers to read him some stories after dinner, but Milo refuses: "'This time,' he said, 'I have stories for you.'" Words and pictures work together to tell a taut and just-right-for-the-audience suspenseful tale. Mixed-media illustrations evoke the majesty of the wintry landscape but keep the focus on Milo's -- and the mouse's -- small journey. Young viewers will enjoy doing some noticing of their own: details such as a berry dropped by a cedar waxwing that the mouse brings back to its mate make the book even more satisfying. Endpapers label all the creatures featured -- and even there, viewers may have to look closely to find them all. (c) Copyright 2021. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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