The Adventures of Snowwoman: A Winter Tale Based on a Story by Vladimir Grigorievich Suteev

by Katya Arnold (Retold by), Vladimir Suteev

With special help, an intrepid Snowwoman delivers a Christmas tree.

Genres: Picture Books, Christmas, Childrens, Animals

32 pages, Hardcover

First published September 19, 1998

Reviews

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book based on the title alone. The title, however, was the best feature of this book. the illustrations are quite technically good, but they hinder and confuse the story. And the story is strange enough already.

[Meredith · Rating 3 out of 5]

A snowwoman delivers a letter to Santa from a group of children, asking for a Christmas tree.

It's Christmas Eve, and a group of children from a housing project still don't have a Christmas tree. They write a letter to Santa Claus and then build a snowwoman to deliver it. With the help of neighborhood dog Buddy, she braves the forest in search of Santa. They encounter a fox, rabbits, and squirrels. At one point, the snowwoman falls apart and has to be rebuild by the helpful woodland animals. The letter is lost and found. Then finally with the help of a bear, the snowwoman, dog, and forest animals reach Santa. Santa gives the dog and the snowwoman a ride home in his sleigh and delivers the Christmas tree for the children to the courtyard of their housing complex.

This picture book is an adaption of the story Yolka (Ëлка) by Vladimir Suteev. There is an author's note in the end matter, explaining the author/illustrator's creative choices. In this adaptation, the author chose to use the Western equivalents for the Russian cultural elements in the story. New Year's Eve and New Year's Day (Новый Год) became Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The New Year tree (ёлка) became a Christmas tree. Grandfather Frost (Ded Moroz / Дед Мороз) became Santa Claus. His troika pulled by horses became a sleigh pulled by reindeer. The Siberian Forest became the North Pole. The dog that had a typical Russian dog name has a typical English dog name. The snowman (snegovik / cнеговик) became a snowwoman (snezhnaya baba / снежная баба) apparently for author preference.

Because I was familiar with the original story through the animated short Snowman-Postman (Снеговик-почтовик / Snegovik-pochtovik), I liked this picture book, but I don't think it works for an American audience because it's hard to imagine a group of children who aren't obviously living in abject poverty not having a Christmas tree. In this land of hyper-consumerism, even the poorest residents have ample Christmas decor thanks to dollar stores and thrift shops. And it's even more difficult for younger generations who didn't have parents and grandparents telling them about growing up during the Great Depression to make this imaginative leap.

I think it would have been better to have done more of a translation than an adaptation when retelling this story for a Western audience. The olden times Soviet setting should have been emphasized since Western audiences think of people in the former Soviet Union as living austere lives of dreary deprivation, so needing to appeal to a folkloric figure for frivolous luxuries like Christmas decorations makes logical sense. Changing New Year to Christmas was a good creative move since Russia celebrates New Year’s in similar ways as Western countries celebrate Christmas, and it would have been confused readers unfamiliar with Russian culture to see the characters celebrating New Year's like Christmas. But it wasn't necessary to change Grandfather Frost into Santa Claus. Grandfather Frost looks like Santa dressed in blue, so his name could have been left as Grandfather Frost, and most readers would have corrected intuited his role as a magic holiday gift giver. Those are just my two cents, based on my own thoughts and on the comments of other readers.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a case of the story not making any sense. Even with careful examination of the pictures, often times the reader has to infer what happened. Considering the age this book is aimed toward, that's poor writing.

[Mary Foust · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wouldn't typically write a review on a children's book because it's for children, not like it has to be a masterpiece number one bestseller. But this was so bad I was compelled to do so.
I read this to my seven year old daughter and even she thought it was poorly written and was disappointed by the quality. It's like the author didn't even try. I think this is the worst-written book I have ever read to a child. Seemed like it was written in five minutes with absolutely no thought put into it at all, like one of those random nonsense stories that a dad would make up off the top of his head on a long car trip to keep the kids quiet, or like a homework assigment someone forgot to do and then at the last minute half-assed it just to finish it in time.
I wouldn't buy this. I got it from the library so fortunately it was free, but if you're considering a holiday book for your kiddo, I'd skip this one. There are far better ones you could get.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was not very impressed. At first I was excited because so many books assume a snowperson is a man and I wanted a counterexample for my children. True to form, the Snowwoman and the wise Bear were both strong female figures. However, the illustrations were very confusing, and sometimes you had to figure out the implied backstory by looking at the pictures since it was not explained in the text. Furthermore, the plot was very disjointed. At one point Snowwoman turned into a pile of snow and she had to be built all over again with really no lesson gained from this. Also, the environment of the scary woods was hinted at but not really followed up on. Finally, the whole story was about Santa which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it was not obvious from the cover and didn't really apply to us since we don't celebrate Santa.

[Ashley Allen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would use this book around Christmas time. I would talk about how the animals wanted to get their letter to Santa. I would then let the students write their own letters to Santa, depending on their age. The pictures in this book were great.

[Carline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Extra book for our 25 books to Christmas. The pictures kept the boys interested but the story was boring and it didn't connect well.