When I was a very little girl growing up in Canada, this book by Ezra Jack Keats was one of my favourites. I vividly remember it being read to us in the school library when I was in Kindergarten, during one of our forays out of the classroom and into the greater school. It was the early 1970‘s, and as I recall, it was a snowy day. I sat with the other children, wearing my (very fashionable) blue cat’s eye glasses and my “listening hat” as our teacher used to call it, totally caught up in the story of Peter and his wonder at the snow.
There was a certain aura to those winter afternoons in the library, a kind of cosy reverie that descended upon us there as we listened to the librarian read us stories. As well as “The Snowy Day”, we were introduced to Robert McCloskey’s “Make Way For Ducklings”, Virginia Lee Burton’s “Katy and the Big Snow” and “Little Blue and Little Yellow” by Leo Lionni among others.
I got to thinking about “A Snowy Day” today because it is a snowy day here, the snowiest I have ever seen in England in the over twenty years I have lived here. I may also have thought about it because today I am missing my Mom, who died two years ago today. You see, it wasn’t just in the school library that I enjoyed stories and books. My Mom introduced me to books at a very young age, and instilled in me a love for them that I still have today. My Mom loved to read to me, although I don’t ever recall her being an avid reader herself. She used to take me to the “bookmobile” (mobile library van) that came to a street near us once a week. We’d meet up with my friend and her Mom who lived three doors down from us, and after we chose some books, we’d go back to either her house or mine. While our moms had a coffee and chatted, we get some time to play together. We all, moms and kids alike, looked forward to the day the bookmobile came.
Isn’t it funny how our minds work? It’s amazing how one thought leads to another and can pull you back years in a millisecond, to a place where nothing has changed. It’s a place where everyone we ever loved still lives, where the sights, smells and feelings of our childhood are still as vividly alive today as they were all those years ago. For a few minutes I was back there today - all because of the snow, the memory of a book and my wonderful Mom.
Here’s some photographs of our snowy day:-
While I may be embarrassed that this much snow has brought the UK to a grinding halt, it is beautiful, and there is something lovely about having a snow day. My husband has been working all day in the study, but it is really nice just to have him here, with all of us safe and warm under one roof. But I really do think it is time councils in the South of England considered the purchase of a few snow ploughs!
