David A. Land
“We need diverse books to be sure, but those must be part of a literature that reflects our reality, books in which little black boys push one another on the swings, in which little black girls daydream about working in the zoo, in which kids of every color do what kids of every color do every day: tromp through the woods, obsess about trucks, love their parents, refuse to eat dinner. We need more books in which our kids are simply themselves, and in which that is enough.”
We Don’t Only Need More Diverse Books. We Need More Diverse Books Like The Snowy Day. -Slate.com
The Snowy Day is a classic for a reason. Keats’ illustrations are so inviting you almost don’t notice how modern his eye is. The text is perfectly poetic, at once surreal and yet so real; a hard note to strike, as anyone who’s ever tried to write for small children (and their caregivers) will agree. And the simple fact that its protagonist is a black boy is revolutionary even decades on. It’s important not to sell Keats’ work short by discussing it only through the lens of race, but leaving aside the question of blackness would be either disingenuous or treacherous, like claiming Muhammad Ali “transcended race.” The blackness of The Snowy Day is indivisible from its excellence.”
