Snowmen at Work

by Caralyn Buehner, Mark Buehner (Illustrator)

Overview

If you were a snowman, what job would you choose?

Ten years ago, on the publication of Snowmen at Night, we discovered the secret lives of snowmen. While we humans sleep, the snowmen go sledding, play baseball, and drink cocoa. But now it's revealed that snowmen don't just play all night--they have jobs to do, just like the parents of human kids. Dentists replace missing coal from snowman smiles while pet store owners help pair snowkids with their very own snowpuppy or snowfish to love. The pizza man delivers frozen pizza, and factory workers make the coolest toys in town.

This fourth book in the New York Times bestselling Snowmen series is a gleeful, goofy delight. Kids will love spotting the silly details in each illustration, and the hidden pictures too. (They can look on the back side of the book jacket for a key to all that's concealed within.)

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101653753
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	10/16/2012
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	32
File size:	50 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	3 - 5 Years

About the Author

Mark and Caralyn Buehner are an award-winning husband-and-wife team who live in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Editorial Reviews

In the Buehners’ fourth snowmen book, a boy contemplates what jobs snowmen might perform. A snowman dentist “might drill bits of coal/ To fix a snowman’s smile”; others work as sled mechanics, librarians, and frozen pizza delivery men. Mark Buehner’s inviting paintings contrast the icy characters with cozy indoor scenes. Though the story ends on a flat note, the abundantly silly details should spur readers’ imaginations, and images hidden in each spread invite close study. Ages 4–8. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

Who knew that snowmen have jobs just like people? At least, that is what a boy imagines, as he notices his family's neatly shoveled front walk, though no one is in sight but his snowman. The Buehners, who have already brought us the best-selling Snowmen at Night and Snowmen at Christmas, eagerly explore the possibility of secret nighttime careers for Frosty and his friends. Starting with an eerie, redly-glowing scene of rotund workers shoveling, blowing, and plowing snowy streets, author Buehner goes on to create rhyming quatrains about other jobs busy snowmen might be doing. Illustrator Buehner takes off with double-page spreads (in oil over acrylics) showing jolly snowmen and snowwomen from various perspectives as they work at being dentists, mechanics, truck drivers, firefighters, magicians, teachers, and librarians. (In a salute to election year, the last image shows one snowman in a unique position of power.) Lit by artificial light, colors are brilliant and gaudy (perhaps overdone with the baker's frost rolls with dinosaur-green icing). Workplaces brim with details defining each role, especially effective in outdoor scenes where the viewer looks down at the action below (firefighters rescuing a cat and a snowman delivering pizza through a light-spangled front yard). Adaptations of human life onto snow people will delight young readers, as in the book's illustrated grocery store where they will find frozen peas, ice cream, popsicles, and Frosty Flakes. For extra fun, Buehner has hidden a cat, a mouse, a rabbit, and a Tyrannosaurus in each picture. Clue: while the perky mouse is easy to spot, the others are often concealed in spaces or shadows. If Buehner fans are wondering what snowmen do in summer, they can explore Snowmen All Year (Dial, 2010). Reviewer: Barbara L. Talcroft

Children's Literature - Barbara L. Talcroft

The Buehners continue their snowmen-come-to-life shtick with this look at occupations. A boy who made a snowman the night before awakens to find new snow on the ground but already-cleared walkways--by his snowman? "Was he the one who shoveled, with a snowman shoveling crew? / Could it be I just don't see that snowmen have jobs too?" Caralyn Buehner's rhyming verses then lead readers in an imaginative tour of other jobs snowmen might have: mechanic (for sleds), grocer, baker, magician, firefighter, "pizza man," factory worker and truck driver. Each work scene is filled with familiar occupational details, like the clip that attaches the dentist's cloth around patients' necks and the decorations that adorn the classroom--it's just the characters that seem out of place to 98.6-degree readers. Especially fun is the pet store, where all the animals are made of snow: a snow rabbit with carrot ears, a snow monkey swinging from the lights and "coldfish" in a tank. Hat, mitten and scarf styles add personality to the characters--don't miss the librarian's and teacher's. A seek-and-find element adds to the fun of poring over the pages--a cat, rabbit, T-rex and mouse are hidden in each painting. Fans and those looking for books about occupations may find themselves looking askance at every snowman they see. (Picture book. 3-7)

Kirkus Reviews