The Biggest, Best Snowman - Hardcover

Cuyler, Margery

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0590139223 ISBN 13: 9780590139229

Publisher: Scholastic Press, 1998

Synopsis

Thinking she is too small to do anything in her family of big people, little Nell gets the help of her friends Reindeer, Hare, and Bear Cub in building an enormous snowman.

About this title

About the Author

MARGERY CUYLER is the author of many children's books, including the first Little Nell story, The Biggest, Best Snowman; Please Say Please!: Penguin's Guide to Manners; and 100th Day Worries. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

Reviews

PreSchool-Grade 2-A slight story with a few engaging winter scenes and a tiny girl who's happy to prove her worth. Little Nell lives with BIG Mama (who wears bunny slippers), BIG Sarah (who has Christmas ornaments dangling from her ears), and BIG Lizzie (who sports tricolored hair). When Little Nell asks if she can help, all three of them say, "No, you can't...You're too small." Disappointed, the child goes off to the "BIG snowy woods" to play with her friends, Reindeer, Hare, and Bear Cub. With their help, she makes the "biggest, best snowman that ever was" and then invites her astounded family to view it. The mixed-media paintings, done with oils, watercolors, and pencil, are filled with droll whimsy. The use of repetitive phrases and a large, clear typeface make the text relatively easy for beginning readers to follow. While not an essential purchase, this title might find a place in collections needing one more wintry picture book.
Harriett Fargnoli, Great Neck Library, NY
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A little girl accomplishes big things in this winning picture book. "Big Mama, Big Sarah, and Big Lizzie" tell Little Nell she's too small to be of help, so Little Nell spends her days in the snow playing with her forest friends. When Reindeer, Hare and Bear Cub urge her to make a snowman, she thinks she's too small. But prodded by their encouraging words and offer of help, Little Nell constructs a splendiferous snowman that makes her family realize she's not so small or helpless after all. As crisp and delicately patterned as a snowflake, Cuyler's (That's Good, That's Bad!) tale brims with rhyming words ("She carefully patted and matted and batted the snow into a tiny ball") and recurring phrases ("She rolled it and rolled it and rolled it to Reindeer") with which children will gleefully chime in. She explores larger themes such as a child's yearning to feel significant and the value of cooperation within the cozy context of family and friendship. Hillenbrand (Traveling to Tondo) matches the jaunty prose with puckish style. Readers will relish the transformation of Little Nell's mother and siblings?who first appear as fairy-tale wicked stepmother and stepsister types with their wildly sprouting hair?into compassionate gentlefolk (except Big Lizzie, who still says "Hmmmph!"). The artist makes the most of the snowy setting: eye-popping colors, from the cardinal perched upon the snowman's twiggy arm to Big Mama's bright fuschia overcoat, show up with perfect clarity against the tranquil, wintry backdrop. Frustrated youngsters will find a champion in Little Nell. Ages 4-7.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This funny winter's tale from Cuyler features a girl who needs a boost of confidence to get past the teasing of her overwhelming, overbearing mother and sisters. When Little Nell asks if she can help prepare for a party being given by BIG Mama, BIG Sarah, and BIG Lizzie, she is turned down: ``No, you can't. You're too small.'' ``Yes, I can, and no, I'm not.'' ``No, you can't, and yes, you are!'' Little Nell takes refuge in the woods that surround her house, where her forest pals--Bear, Hare, and Reindeerprovide the support that is absent on the home front. They combine forces to build a BIG snowman, which towers like a colossus in the snowy woods. It even impresses her dismissive mother and BIG sister Sarah when Little Nell brings them to see her achievement. BIG Lizzie adds a note of sibling realism, by sticking ``her BIG nose in the air--HMMPH!'' Hillenbrand's comic exaggerations put both the characters and the landscape powerfully in place. (Picture book. 4-7) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Scholastic Press
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0590139223
• ISBN 13: 9780590139229
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Hillenbrand Will
• Edition number: 5
• Number of pages: 32