![]() ![]() Roger Duvoisin uses an entirely different style for this book, and most scenes are shown through a gentle blanket of fog. It’s the same illustrator Tresselt used 16 years earlier on “White Snow, Bright Snow,” and those illustrations won a Caldecott medal. The illustrations are beautiful, with a bright gray that makes everything seem soft and abstract. Vanishing into a fog bank, even the sun becomes “a pale daytime moon.” And families on the beach hurry to gather up their picnic baskets. “The dampness touched the crisp white sails of the racing sailboats, and suddenly the wind left them in the middle of the race.” Seagulls, too, respond to the fog, return to nests on the craggy rocks. But he also writes about the people it affects, and the book lists out every reaction. “The lobsterman first saw the fog as it rolled in from the sea,” the book opens “He watched it turn off the sun-sparkle and the waves, and he saw the water turn gray.” Tresselt writes poetically about the gradually creeping cloud, describing how it turned the water gray and made the boats bob like corks. ![]() Sixteen years later, Tresselt tried a similar formula. ( “A Gift of the Tree” described the entire life cycle of a dying oak tree, and the way it nourishes the ground around it.) “White Snow, Bright Snow” won a Caldecott Medal for its illustrations in 1948. Alvin Tresselt wrote beautifully about natural subjects – like snow and heat – and the way they influence the world around them. ![]()
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