Winter Is Coming by Tony Johnston (review)

As fall winds down to winter, a keen-eyed girl quietly observes the animals’ preparation from her cleverly situated platform in a tree at the edge of a meadow. She watches deer and skunks, and spies a fox and a lynx, as the season grows colder and the animals scurry to find whatever food they can to fill up for the tough times ahead. Though the text is lengthy, Johnston makes it work, demonstrating her authorial chops with ragged-right prose that moves smoothly between naturalistic observation and lyricism (the deer “nibble the brittle grass. They nibble at the edges of ferns. They nibble at nothing”); careful use of rhythm and the periodic repetition of “winter is coming” help structure the account of the move through fall. The illustrations, employing colored pencil, ink, and acrylic paint, use the realistic figures of girl and animals as the centerpieces of creative compositions: viewers peer down on the flying Canada geese to see the girl looking up at them from below, or perch alongside her in a neighboring pine as she sketches some busy chipmunks. The tree’s curving limbs and solid trunk anchor hazy full-spread landscapes suffused with autumnal golds and russets. Literarily inclined youngsters will appreciate this as an entrée to a nature study unit or a field trip involving wildlife observation.