A Snowman´s Story

A sweet and action-packed winter story

Snowman´s story is a book about books, the perfect gift for the all the bibliophiles among us. It is a sweet and charming, but also suspense-filled story:  A bunny discovers a top hat in the snow. She climbs into it, and the wind makes it flie away with her inside it only to land on the top of a snowman´s head. As soon as it does, the snowman comes to life, and a small penguin hands him a book . The snowman reads the book for an excited group of animals, bunny still hidden in his hat. He falls asleep, the bunny carefully climbs out of the hat...and steals the book! Snowman wakes up, calls for help, and then the reader gets to follow a sequence of pictures and spreads worthy of an action movie: There is jumping off cliffs, climbing of mountains, almost cathastrophic events and a snowball fight! The drama! The action! 

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As in all good stories, peace and friendship is restored at the end. Do you wonder why the bunny ran away with the book? Well, you will have to read it, we are not telling. It is a very sweet and charming surprise.

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Hillebrand´s illustrations have a charming, vintage storybook-feel to them. They are made with a variety of methods and materials that are actually listed in the book: Graphite and colored pencils, chalk pastels, pixels, china markers, crayons, ink, watercolor, collage, transparent tape and kneaded eraser on paper. The white frames around each picture adds to the vintage feel, and gives a nice effect when something breaks the frame (the snowman´s hat, the bunny´s ears, the owl´s wings). Most spreads consists of either two large pictures, or one full-page picture and one paneled page. It gives a nice rythm to the story and helps build the feel of fast-paced action. There is only one full spread, a very dramatic illustration of the bunny dragging the book towards the edge of a cliff. The fact that it is the only full spread makes it natural for the reader to stop and use time and really feel the suspense.

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Will Hillenbrand has written and illustrated a lot of picturebooks, and has also illustrated dozens of other author´s books. "Snowman´s story" was his first silent book. A Christmas classic to be enjoyed by book lovers everywhere!