Grandmother Winter Hardcover - 1999

"The text's quiet rhythms find perfect resonance in the crisp, idyllic colored scratchboard country scenes. It's a strong picture book debut for Krommes." Kirkus Reviews

Grandmother Winter keeps snow-white geese. During the spring and summer, she collects the feathers released by their flapping wings; come autumn, she stitches the feathers into a lovely white quilt. When she shakes it, snowflakes fall cold from the sky, signaling the beginning of winter. Once the animals (and children) have made ready-snakes coiled in old woodchuck holes, hares in their coats of white, chickadees fluffed up against the cold-Grandmother herself, surrounded by her drowsy geese, snuggles under the quilt to sleep until spring. Root's cadenced text, lyrical and sweet, is nicely matched by Beth Krommes's debut illustrations. Her handsome stylized art, rendered in scratchboard and watercolor, depicts round, motherly forms embellished with figures referring to snow-six-pointed flakes, patterns like frost on a window, the flowing curves of a drift. The many creatures preparing for winter -- bats, worms, frogs, fish, bears, and so on -- are carefully observed as well as decorative. Horn Book