The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats is a classic! It’s about a Black boy named Peter who wakes up to learn it snowed overnight. Peter excitedly heads out into his neighborhood for a day of fun in the snow. With Peter, Keats creates an inquisitive and adventurous, young character who’s relatable to young readers.
Peter enjoys his snow day by heaping together a smiling snowman and imagining himself as a mountain climber. He even saves a snowball in his pocket for the next day!
The Snowy Day was published in 1962 and was the first children’s book depicting a Black protagonist to win the Caldecott Medal Award. While Ezra Jack Keats has written many books about Peter and the kids from his neighborhood, The Snowy Day, featuring Peter, is arguably his most memorable piece.
The Snowy Day is available online as a read-along and was made into an animated film in 2016. I recently watched the animated film with my kids, and they loved it! The movie shares glimpses of Peter’s relationship with his neighbors, introduces you to his grandmother, and deviates from the original story in a fabulously imaginative way all while remaining true to the spirit of the original source material.
The Snowy Day isn’t a classic simply because it tells a timeless story that most cold-weather folks can relate to; it is one of the first books to introduce young Black readers to a character that they could very easily relate to. In an interview, Deborah Pope, a childhood friend of Ezra Jack Keats and executive director of the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation, reflects on one teacher’s testimony: After reading The Snowy Day with her class, the students began to draw themselves using black and brown crayons; before this, they would use pink crayons (NPR, 2012).
Earlier this year, in honor of the New York Library’s 125th anniversary, it released its top checkouts of all time. Would you have guessed that The Snowy Day would top the list with 483,583 checkouts?! The city celebrated with special limited-edition Snowy Day library cards & MetroCards too!
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