Winter Magic
by Robert Burleigh; illus. by Wendell Minor
Preschool, Primary    Ottaviano/Little, Brown    32 pp.
9/24    9780316560498    $18.99

This picture book employs a first-person voice to enumerate the joys of winter. The rhyming text claims the identity of everything from snowmen to hot cocoa. “I’m a skater flying across the ice—flash! / I’m a sled zooming down the hill—dash!” Two of the season’s holidays, Christmas and Hanukkah, are referenced in the text and/or the gouache, watercolor, and digital illustrations. The palette is appropriately cool, with pops of warmer colors, including bright red for mittens and the jacket of a boy making a snow angel (in perhaps a subtle nod to The Snowy Day) and glowing yellow for a cozy fire. The repeated refrain “I am Winter…” is completed at book’s end with “I am Winter Magic!” An uplifting celebration.

From the ">November/December 2024 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.