Ten Ways to Hear Snow

August 15, 2020
On her way to her grandmother's, Lina counts the ways she hears snow. Lina is excited to tell Sitti about the snowstorm and is looking forward to making warak enab with her. Sitti is losing her eyesight, and Lina enjoys cooking with Sitti in her room at the assisted living facility. Bundled up and walking in the snow, Lina thinks about how her grandma must feel, listening to how the world sounds. "Scraaape, scrip, scraaape, scrip," is the sound of Mrs. Watson's shovel; "Snyak, snyek, snyuk," tread Lina's boots. She sees people brushing off their cars and her friends Rachid and Mariam building a snowman. At Sitti's, her grandmother instructs Lina how to stuff the grape leaves with the rice and lamb mixture and to roll them up, vignettes showing the different steps. They also have fun afterward, comparing them to "little grape leaf cocoons" and pretending they are mustaches. Using soft, clear, and calming colors, Pak portrays the neighborhood in the aftermath of the snowstorm, visually interpreting the variety of noises and activities the community partakes in. His quiet compositions complement Camper's words, which beautifully evoke the experience: "The world sounded softer, but the noises [Lina] heard were clear." Lina's family seems to be Middle Eastern in origin--her father calls her the Arabic endearment "habibti"--and they all have brown skin. Both the neighborhood and the assisted living home are racially diverse. (This book was reviewed digitally with 9-by-21-inch double-page spreads viewed at 57.3% of actual size.) Readers will savor this calm, kind, and loving moment between a granddaughter and her grandma. (Picture book. 3-8)

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September 7, 2020
Luminous aquatint-like views of snow-covered neighborhood streets by Pak (Maud and Grand-Maud) contribute serenity to this story about senses and perception. A blizzard has ended, and Lina heads to visit her grandmother, Sitti. As she considers Sitti’s diminishing eyesight en route, Lina realizes that snow is not just seen, but heard, and starts to list its different sounds: the “scraaape scrip” of a snow shovel, the “ploompf” of snow dislodged by a bluejay, the “drip, drip” of mittens drying. At Sitti’s apartment, the two make warak enab (grape leaves stuffed with rice and lamb), assembling the rolls and joking as they go: “Mine looks like a mustache!” Lina says, holding a roll under her nose. How does Sitti knows that it has snowed? “Each morning I open the window and listen,” Sitti tells the girl, and her sharp hearing supplies the final item on Lina’s list. Deliberately paced, peppered with sound words, and centered around a close-knit family’s routines and meals, this story by Camper (the Lowriders in Space series) is just right for winter reading. Ages 4–8.

Starred review from October 1, 2020
Preschool-G *Starred Review* One morning, Lina discovers that snow has fallen. There's enough to blanket the town but not enough to keep her from visiting Sitti, her grandmother, who is losing her eyesight. Walking through the neighborhood toward Sitti's retirement building, Lina listens for different sounds associated with snow and counts eight, from the scraaape, scrip of a snow shovel clearing the sidewalk to the thwomp of a snowball hitting its target. In her grandmother's apartment, they make Lebanese stuffed grape leaves. While eating them together, Lina hears the ninth sound, melted snow dripping from her mittens. She's surprised to learn that Sitti already knows about the snowfall. That morning, she opened the window and sensed it. How? Quiet is the tenth way to hear snow. Camper's well-worded text creates a warm, comforting story with a wintry backdrop. The narrative and the illustrations portray an amiable Arab American family and, especially, the loving, playful relationship between granddaughter and grandmother. In Pak's spare, beautiful digital artwork, the clean lines and restrained use of color encourage viewers to focus on the main characters, their perceptions, and their strong kinship. A fine selection for teachers requesting picture books on the senses and a natural for reading aloud before the season's first snowfall.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

Starred review from December 1, 2020

K-Gr 3-Perhaps only someone who has lived in a snowy place and loved it would find 10 ways to hear snow. This poetic undertaking is as simple as a walk to a grandparent's home and, ultimately, just as heartwarming. Lina hears a muffled sound, first in the morning when no one is moving after a blizzard the day before, a thwomp when the snow falls off a branch that sways under the weight, and the scrape of shovels as sidewalks are cleared. She wonders if Sitti, her grandmother, will know that it has snowed, and goes to tell her, and to make stuffed grape leaves, a Lebanese favorite. But the 10th way to hear snow is its quiet, and Sitti, who cannot see well, is well aware of the blizzard's aftermath. Camper's straightforward telling is imbued with lyrical moments: "Outside, the late blue afternoon was completely still" perfectly describes the color and cast of the day's blanketed scenery. Lina's skin is light brown, and her hair is black; her parents, too, have similar coloring, he with a moustache and calling her the Arabic endearment "habibti." The inclusion of that and a few other Arabic words is seamless. In muted pastel colors, with foamlike blocks of snow lining branches, roofs, and hedges, Pak re-creates the sculptured effect of snow-that it covers the landscape, and in doing so, highlights it: eyebrows of white over windows, bumps where there had been bushes, drifts scattershot up the trunks of trees. VERDICT Not since Ezra Jack Keats in Snowy Day and Karen Gundersheimer in Happy Winter has snow been so lovingly depicted, in a counting game for children in all seasons.-Kimberly Olson Fakih, School Library Journal

Copyright 2020 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2020
When she wakes to discover that it blizzarded the night before, Lina isn't deterred from her plans to walk to see her grandmother (in Arabic, sitti). Outside, the bright sun's reflection makes it difficult to see, so Lina focuses on her sense of hearing. She makes mental notes of how certain sounds can be ways to "hear snow": boots "crunching snow into tiny waffles" ("Snyak, snyek, snyuk") or the scraping noises of shovels digging out sidewalks ("Scraaape, scrip, scraaape, scrip"). Lina arrives at her grandmother's building, and they begin to fill and roll grape leaves together; although Sitti is losing her eyesight, she remains an adept teacher. While Lina wonders if she had even known about the blizzard, Sitti tells her that sometimes "no noise is the sound that means it's snowing." From the snowflake composed of grape leaves on the title page to the cookbook-like diagram of how to roll a grape leaf, digitally rendered illustrations emphasize not just the beauty of pristine snow from multiple visual perspectives but also the significance of Lina's ethnic Arab heritage. While grandmothers and grape leaves are common tropes in Arab American literature, the emphasis on sensory exploration forges new ways to think about intergenerational, intercultural connections.

(Copyright 2020 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

November 1, 2020
When she wakes to discover that it blizzarded the night before, Lina isn't deterred from her plans to walk to see her grandmother (in Arabic, sitti). Outside, the bright sun's reflection makes it difficult to see, so Lina focuses on her sense of hearing. She makes mental notes of how certain sounds can be ways to "hear snow": boots "crunching snow into tiny waffles" ("Snyak, snyek, snyuk") or the scraping noises of shovels digging out sidewalks ("Scraaape, scrip, scraaape, scrip"). Lina arrives at her grandmother's building, and they begin to fill and roll grape leaves together; although Sitti is losing her eyesight, she remains an adept teacher. While Lina wonders if she had even known about the blizzard, Sitti tells her that sometimes "no noise is the sound that means it's snowing." From the snowflake composed of grape leaves on the title page to the cookbook-like diagram of how to roll a grape leaf, digitally rendered illustrations emphasize not just the beauty of pristine snow from multiple visual perspectives but also the significance of Lina's ethnic Arab heritage. While grandmothers and grape leaves are common tropes in Arab American literature, the emphasis on sensory exploration forges new ways to think about intergenerational, intercultural connections. Julie Hakim Azzam

(Copyright 2020 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)