If Snowflakes Tasted Like Fruitcake

Previn (Aberdeen) delivers a whimsical rhyme that sees a child imagining different things snowflakes could taste like, before deciding that they taste “like winter.” Dressed from head to toe in red, her young hero can’t help but recall the star of Ezra Jack Keats’s The Snowy Day; Previn sets him in a series of pared-down winter landscapes that are heavily textured with crisscrossing lines, wood-grain backgrounds, and other patterns. Previn’s buoyant rhymes hit on many winter highlights like cocoa, sugarplums, and gingerbread, and even when they don’t make literal sense (“If snowflakes tasted like chestnuts... I would roast them by the fire”), they easily conjure a playful winter mood. Ages 4–8. Agent: Steven Chudney, Chudney Agency. (Sept.)