Module 2 - The Snowman and A boy, a dog, and a frog

The Snowman

by Raymond Briggs

ISBN 0-394-83973-0

Summary:

Raymond Briggs uses illustrations to show us the story of a boy who rushes outside on a snowy day to build a snowman.  Unable to sleep that night, he goes outside and discovers that his snowman is alive.  The boys takes the snowman on a tour of his house and they have a snack, try on the dad's clothes, even drive the car around the block.  The snowman then takes the boy outside and on a flying journey around the world.  They return home as the sun rises.

My Impressions:

I love the illustrations and this truly is a children's book as it allows anyone to follow the story since there are no words involved.  The soft color pencil drawings are effective at not only telling the story, but drawing the reader into the story and invoking emotions for the characters.  Who doesn't feel a sense of loss at the end of the book when the boy runs outside and discovers his snowman is a puddle? I think the sequence in the middle is particularly touching when the boy takes the snowman into his house; the snowman recognizes a picture of the boy that sits on the father's dresser.  The snowman points to the picture, then to the boy.

Professional Reviews:

The Snowman is such a memorable story in large measure because it uses no words. Even in the first frames, where a boy awakes on a winter morning to find the ground covered with snow and thick flakes falling, the silence is part of the effect. He wakes, looks out of the window, hurriedly dresses, and rushes into the garden. He is absorbed in his own world, cut off by his excitement from any conversation with his mother. Only in one frame might he speak, when he shows her what he is doing by pointing outside, and even here he hardly needs to say anything. In the last frame of the page, she watches from a window as he runs across the snow, his woollen hat falling off disregarded behind him.

The story's silence is enclosing. The sky is dark with snow and light is dimmed to greys and greens. Everything is muffled. The story brilliantly recalls how, with heavy snow, the world is made quiet. Slowly the boy builds the snowman, the process pausing in one frame where he silently eats his breakfast, watched by his mother. All his thoughts are bent on this. Human exchange is at a minimum: on the third page, where he attaches clothes and facial features to the fully formed snowman, he comes back into the house for one frame to ask for a hat and scarf, but this is reduced to the single gesture of pointing outside again. By the last frame of the page the snowman is completed, his benign smile the boy's last thought.

Back indoors, afternoon has darkened into evening, and in every frame, as his parents make toast or watch TV, or later as he prepares for bed, he looks out of the window. It is important that he is an only child, and that his parents, while affectionate, seem elderly, distant. This is the background to the tale's odd melancholy. The wordlessness of the narrative focuses his rapt attention on the snowman he has made. So on the page where he wakes in the night, hurries downstairs, and opens the back door, the final frame - where the snowman cheerfully doffs his hat - is almost not surprising. He and we were prepared for this.

Of course, Briggs is not wedded to wordless stories. Another of his classics, Fungus the Bogeyman, is almost overwhelmed with words. We see the Bogeymen's modus vivendi, and the pictures are encrusted with detailed labels and explanatory panels charting Fungus and Mildew's slimey but affectionate life together. The story is a veritable encyclopedia of Bogey-dom. In Father Christmas, in contrast, the words are important but minimal, and nearly all spoken by the eponymous protagonist. Father Christmas leads a solitary life, up north somewhere with his cat and his dog and his stabled reindeer. He has no one to speak to, so the only words are (mostly exasperated) exclamations. Waking in his striped pyjamas under his thick eiderdown (home comforts tend to have a 1950s quality in Briggs's stories), he looks at the calendar ("Dec 24") and announces, "Blooming Christmas here again!" Words are forced out of him ("I hate winter!" he exclaims as he sits on the chilly outdoor lavatory) or are a self-reassuring solace in the face of discomfort ("Good pot of tea," he says as he pours the boiling water into the pot). The only other voice is the radio, which drives him to even greater grumpiness.

In The Snowman, the absence of any words suits the magical communication between snowman and boy. Does the Snowman understand English? He does not need to, because he has found a companion who immediately understands his wonder at the human world. In the still hours, the boy and the snowman, communicating by smiles and gestures, explore the house. Its mysteries - light switches, hot water, the freezer - can only be understood by demonstration. In their bedroom, the parents sleep as their son's new companion silently dons an assortment of their clothes. Then, in the sequence that the animated film was to make famous, the snowman takes the boy into the air. He does not need to ask him if this is what he wants. It is simply where the story must lead. Soon the two of them are over some exotic Russian clime - but dawn approaches and they evidently have to hurry back.

The Snowman takes up his silent station in the garden, and the boy watches him again from his window. In the final pages, the boy gets up in the morning and rushes without speaking past his parents at breakfast, only to find, inevitably, that the Snowman is but a pile of melted snow. It is a famous ending, the moment at which the boy must abandon his own special world. But before this there is a more remarkable passage of illustrations: a whole page of 12 individual frames is given over to the boy in bed. Frame by frame the restiveness of his sleep is captured, as the light slowly changes to morning. Watching a character sleep is a strange experience. Here it simply lets us see that this solitary child is possessed by unspoken dreams.

Mullan, J. (2008, December 12).  The Snowman and Father Christmas by Raymond Briggs [Review of the book The snowman]  The Guardian.  Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/dec/13/raymond-briggs-snowman

Having Fun in the Library:

The librarian will preselect illustrations from the book and assign particular ones to student groups.  The students will then write text to accompany this wordless book. This can be done on the computer or by hand.  Collect all the text pieces and read the story aloud as a whole.  As an additional activity, have the students create a sound recording for the story.  This could be the text that the class wrote or a soundtrack.

After sharing the book, watch the video.  Discuss similarities and differences.

Reviews & Awards:

In 1978, The Snowman received the following honors: School Library Journal Best Books of the Year; Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Winner; Horn Book Fanfare; ALA Notable Children's Books; and Library of Congress Children's Books of the Year. Official Website for The Snowman: http://www.thesnowman.co.uk Briggs, R. (1978).  The snowman.  New York: Random House.  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  A boy, a dog and a frog by Mercer Mayer ISBN 0-8037-2880-8 Summary: Without using text, Mercer Mayer conveys the story of a boy and his dog and their journey in the forest.  They meet a frog who does not want to be caught in their net, but is willing to become friends. My Impressions: I chose another wordless book for my blog this week.  This book has a happier ending than The Snowman and a surprise ending.  Wordless books teach so much to students and are a nice alternative for story time.   Professional Reviews: A small trim size, subtle line work, and the absence of color invite readers to pay close attention to the hilarious antics of an enthusiastic frog-catcher, his canine sidekick, and the elusive amphibian as they cavort in the creek. A "hoppy" surprise awaits the long-suffering boy at bath time  (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. Lukehart, W. (2011, April1).  Picture perfect [Review of the book a boy, a dog and a frog].  School Library Journal, 57(4), 50-54.   Having Fun in the Library: Have students write down a journal entry that the boy might have made at the end of his day. Divide the students into groups of two or three.  Have them go on a prearranged scavenger hunt around the library, looking for fiction and nonfiction books about dogs and frogs.   Draw a simple map of the neighborhood.  Draw little frog footprints hopping around.  Have children determine which direction the frog is heading (north or south, east or west) and ask them which road would he travel to get from the pond to the school.   Mayer, M. (1967).  A boy, a dog and a frog. New York: Dial Books for Young Readers.