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Synopsis
Maxwell Newhouse, folk artist extraordinaire, has created a unique counting book. The premise is simple. He invites children to count with him from ten crunching caribou down to one lonely moose, by finding other northern animals - from seals to wolves to snowy owls - as they turn the pages. But as the animals appear, so does the snow, until it's a character too, obliterating light and dark, sky and earth.
A gorgeous exploration of the isolation and the beauty of northern winter, Maxwell Newhouse has created a deceptively simple picture book that can be enjoyed by all ages.
Publishers Weekly
In this petite counting book, striking oil compositions feature groups of animals in an increasingly snowy Arctic. On the flip side of each page, Newhouse portrays the same animal ensembles in mid-movement, as though exiting the tableaus. Alliterative gerunds describe each scene: a sculptural tower of rocks is a perch for "8 ravens raving" amid snow flurries, and on the following page, the flock lifts off. In another spread, four white hares huddle before withdrawing into the storm, and when a single moose, "silent in the falling snow," disappears, the next frame is filled with only flecks of blizzard white. A sparse and lovely meditation on winter wilderness. Ages 2 5. (Nov.)