Snow

You won’t find The Snowy Day by Jack Ezra Keats and Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer linked on Amazon; they are different in every conceivable way. Keats story is a children’s picture book that follows one small boy through a wintry day, Krakauer wrote his non-fiction bestseller about the tragic 1996 Mount Everest expedition in which eight climbers lost their lives. But after reading either of these fine books, you will feel as if the experience was yours. That’s the magic of good writing; it captivates and cultivates the reader.

The Snowy Day is a perfect book. I don’t think you could change or omit a single word to improve it. With a gentle cadence and lively collage illustrations, the reader will understand ‘snow’ even if they’ve never seen it before. That is saying a lot.

Into Thin Air is truly hypnotic; in my case I literally could not put the book down. With my heart pounding, I felt the fierce wind, the blinding ice, and the intense fear and desperation of the climbers because of Krakauer’s magnificent talent as a storyteller.

It’s hot and I’m thinking about snow.