cover image Snowmen at Halloween

Snowmen at Halloween

Caralyn Buehner, illus. by Mark Buehner. Dial, $17.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-525-55468-4

A surprise October snowfall brings the Buehners’ well-known characters out for a night of Halloween fun. The narrator and his sister carefully craft a troupe of snow characters and outfit them in costume, then, in a now-familiar setup, head off to bed as the boy imagines just what the snowmen get up to while everyone else is asleep. Caralyn Buehner’s bouncy rhymes chronicle the frosty friends’ parade into town—warmly lit for carnival games, a hay-bale maze, and trick-or-treating—before they leave a celebratory seasonal message in their melted wake. Mark Buehner’s oil-and-acrylic illustrations feature a playful balance between nighttime shadows and twinkling jack-o’-lanterns, and young readers will enjoy searching for each of the roly-poly friends (a rabbit, a robot, and a rowboat among them) on every page. Ages 3–7. [em](Aug.) [/em]