GRANDMOTHER WINTER
by Phyllis Root
Root (Aunt Nancy and Cousin Lazybones, 1998, etc.) presents Winter as a motherly old woman gathering up goose feathers during spring and summer, then making a white quilt that she shakes out, covering the land with snow. The text’s quiet rhythms find perfect resonance in the crisp, idyllic colored scratchboard country scenes. It’s a strong picture book debut for Krommes, and readers who place this plump, smiling farm wife next to the crusty geezer in Stephen Gammell’s Is That You, Winter? (1997) will find the contrast of personalities amusing. (Picture book. 6-7)