The Snowman (book)

The Snowman is a wordless children's picture book by English author Raymond Briggs, first published in 1978 by Hamish Hamilton in the United Kingdom, and published by Random House in the United States in November of the same year.[1] The book won a number of awards and was adapted into an animated television film in 1982 which is an annual fixture at Christmas. The book is entirely wordless, and illustrated with only pencil crayons.[2] Briggs said that it was partly inspired by his previous book Fungus the Bogeyman: "For two years I worked on Fungus, buried amongst muck, slime and words, so... I wanted to do something which was clean, pleasant, fresh and wordless and quick."[3]

The Snowman
First edition
AuthorRaymond Briggs
IllustratorRaymond Briggs
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
GenrePicture book
PublisherHamish Hamilton
Publication date
1978
Media typePrint
Pages32 pp
ISBN0241100046
OCLC788883530
LC ClassPZ7.B7646 Sn 1978[1]

Plot

One snowy winter's day, a boy builds a snowman who comes to life at the stroke of midnight. He and the boy play with appliances, toys and other bric-a-brac in the house, all while keeping quiet enough not to wake his parents.

After they play with the lights on the family car, he prepares a feast that the duo eat by candlelight. The snowman takes the boy outside and they begin to fly over the South Downs and watch the sun coming up from Brighton pier before returning home. When the boy wakes in the morning, he finds that the snowman has melted.

In a 2012 interview for Radio Times, Briggs noted "I don't have happy endings. I create what seems natural and inevitable. The snowman melts, my parents died, animals die, flowers die. Everything does. There's nothing particularly gloomy about it. It's a fact of life." He refutes the idea that the book is a Christmas book, noting that it was only the animated adaptation that introduces this element.[4]

Awards

In the United Kingdom, it was the runner-up for the Kate Greenaway Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book illustration by a British writer.[5][lower-alpha 1] In the United States, it was named to the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award list in 1979.

Adaptations
Main article: The Snowman

The book was adapted into a half-hour animated television film in 1982, which debuted on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom on 26 December. The Snowman film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film and has become an annual festive event, inspiring multiple spin-offs including a concert work, stage show,[6] video game[7] and an animated sequel.[8]

Notes
  1. Today there are usually eight books on the Greenaway shortlist. According to CCSU, some runners up for the Greenaway Medal through 2002 were Commended (from 1959) or Highly Commended (from 1974). There were thirty one "Highly Commended" runners up in twenty nine years from 1974 to 2002, including Briggs alone in 1978.

References
  1. "The snowman" (first U.S. edition). Library of Congress Catalog. Retrieved 2012-09-01.
  2. "Why I'd like to be a proper author: Strip cartoons are a botheration for Raymond Briggs". The Guardian. 1 November 2002.
  3. "Raymond Briggs". Puffin Books. Retrieved 4 December 2012.
  4. "Snowman creator Raymond Briggs – grumpy old man or great big softie?". Radio Times. 24 December 2012.
  5. "Kate Greenaway Medal". 2007(?). Curriculum Lab. Elihu Burritt Library. Central Connecticut State University (CCSU). Retrieved 2012-07-18.
  6. "The Snowman @ The Lowry" (no date). News and Reviews. City Life.
  7. "Snowman, The – World of Spectrum". www.worldofspectrum.org.
  8. "The Snowman and The Snowdog animator revisits classic". BBC News. 24 December 2012. Retrieved 25 December 2012.
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