Rupert’s Snowman

Written by Phillipa Warden & Illustrated by Grace Ward

Kat Biggie Press – 15th September 2020

15 weeks to Christmas!

Rupert’s Snowman, publishing this coming week is the first in a number of new Christmas releases soon to be joining festive book collections.

A snow day is a most rare and magical experience for a child. A flurry of beautiful illustrations perfectly capture the awe and wonder of drawing back the curtains and seeing the landscape transformed under a blanket of snow, wrapping up in hats, gloves and scarves, sledging and making snow angels.

Rupert and his mum get bundled up in their warm, woolly hats and scarves and set out with their sledge in search of the perfect snowy day. They build a snowman, collecting sticks from the hedgerow for his arms and stones for his eyes, nose and buttons. Rather ingeniously, Rupert uses the mug from the thermos flask as a hat and the left over hot chocolate trickles down the snowman’s head to look like hair.

But when it’s time to go home, Rupert is sad to leave his snowman all alone in the field. Unable to bear her little boy being upset on Christmas Eve, his mum helps Rupert to carefully dismantle the snowman and transport him back home on the sledge so he can be reassembled in the garden. Together, they make a little snow family to keep him company.

As a parent, a snow day is a day for making treasured memories and sharing the experience of building a snowman with your child is one to cherish – snow on Christmas Eve would be extra special! Rupert’s Snowman is a wonderful addition to the seasonal picture book collection for toddlers and preschoolers and would be perfect in a Christmas Eve box.

I really hope we are blessed with a snow day this winter, although with schools all set up for online learning, children might be logging onto Zoom or Google Classroom instead of sledging! (I really hope not!)

With thanks to NetGalley and Kat Biggie Press for providing me with a copy to review in advance of publication.