{"id":3025,"date":"2021-03-01T12:33:00","date_gmt":"2021-03-01T20:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.destinationsitters.com\/blog\/?p=3025"},"modified":"2025-05-23T15:53:21","modified_gmt":"2025-05-23T22:53:21","slug":"february-book-selection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.destinationsitters.com\/blog\/february-book-selection\/","title":{"rendered":"February Destination Sitters Book Selection"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<p>The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>Ezra Jack Keats wrote <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Snowy-Day-Board-Book\/dp\/0670867330\">The Snowy Day<\/a><\/em> in 1962 and it is one of this most well-known books. He received the Caldecott Medal for his illustrations in <em>The Snowy Day<\/em> 1963. Keats was always an artist, receiving high honors in high school and working as a mural painter under the New Deal program Works Progress Administration. He illustrated comic backgrounds for the Captain Marvel comic strip, and when he was drafted in World War II he designed camouflage patterns for the US Army Air Force. Keats began his work in children\u2019s books as an illustrator, but breached that gap with <em>The Snowy Day<\/em>, which was the first book he wrote himself. The main character, Peter, was inspired by a photograph from a <em>Life <\/em>magazine in 1940, when Keats noticed that not many African American protagonists appeared in children\u2019s books at the time, and Peter appeared in six more books after <em>The Snowy Day<\/em>. Keats is remembered in particular for introducing multiculturalism into mainstream America. Keats was born in 1916 and died in 1983.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>Keats describes a child\u2019s first snow day of the season through Peter. Peter wakes up with snow outside his window, \u201c[covering] everything as far as he could see.\u201d He put on his snowsuit and experimented with his footprints in the snow, seeing all the shapes and patterns he could make. He made snowmen and snow angels and slid down snowy mountains. He went back into his warm house and \u201cthought and thought and thought\u201d about his adventures in the snow. When he woke up the next day there was even more snow outside, and he and his friend went to play in the snow.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>This children\u2019s book is a landmark of racial representation, and the illustrations are unique as well \u2013 despite Keats\u2019 expertise in painting, he illustrated the book using collage. Large words make this a charming book to read along with your child. The pictures are pleasant and unique, as Keats used all sorts of unusual techniques in his illustrations, such as collage, stamps, and paint splatter. A special \u201c50<sup>th<\/sup> Anniversary\u201d edition is now available, including images of the inspiration for Peter from the 1940 <em>Life<\/em> magazine and some of Keats\u2019 best fan mail. In 2007, the book was named one of the \u201cTeachers\u2019 Top 100 Books for Children,\u201d and in 2012 was 5<sup>th<\/sup> on the list of \u201cTop 100 Picture Books\u201d of all time.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>Happy reading!<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>Scarlett<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>January Book Selection: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.destinationsitters.com\/blog\/book-review-selection\/\">The Runaway Bunny<\/a><\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats Ezra Jack Keats  [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3028,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[197],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.destinationsitters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.destinationsitters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.destinationsitters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.destinationsitters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.destinationsitters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3025"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.destinationsitters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3025\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6548,"href":"https:\/\/www.destinationsitters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3025\/revisions\/6548"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.destinationsitters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.destinationsitters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.destinationsitters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.destinationsitters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}