Snowzilla

by Janet Lawler, Amanda Haley (Illustrator)

Overview

It snowed without stopping
for week after week.
When it ended at last,
Cami Lou took a peek.

She bundled and booted
and zipped up her brother.
“Let’s build a huge snowman
unlike any other!”

Cami Lou and her brother build the biggest, hugest, most mammoth snowman the world has ever seen. It’s Snowzilla! The snowman becomes an instant sensation, and tourists pour into the small town. But not everyone is impressed. Some say the giant snowman brings giant problems. Then a judge rules that Snowzilla must come down. Can Cami Lou and her brother save Snowzilla? This fun winter story combines rhyming text with adorable acrylic and colored pencil artwork.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781662524233
Publisher:	Amazon Publishing
Publication date:	04/15/2025
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 1.25(h) x 9.00(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Janet Lawler’s critically acclaimed children’s books include If Kisses Were Colors, illustrated by Alison Jay, and Tyrannoclaus, illustrated by John Shroades. Janet’s love of family, nature, and all things silly inspires much of her writing. Her family shares their home in Connecticut with a dog, a lizard, and assorted wildlife that visit the backyard. Janet enjoys presenting her books at schools and libraries. Learn more about the author at www.JanetLawler.com

Amanda Haley holds a B.F.A degree in painting and drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has illustrated more than forty children’s books, including Spark the Firefighter by Stephen Krensky, The All-American Jump and Jive Jig by M. P. Hueston, and Reading to Peanut by Leda Schubert. In her free time, Amanda loves to garden, collect antique toys, and watch old black-and-white movies, especially film noir. She lives in Ohio with her husband and their dog, Mayzie.

Editorial Reviews

When someone can rhyme and tell a story as well as Janet Lawler can, then you don’t want to miss her books. Snowzilla is going to become a legend just like Frosty.” —Margo L. Dill, educator, blogger, and author of Finding My Place

From the Publisher

In a chirpy story of mild civil strife, a girl named Cami Lou constructs a humungous snowman (helpfully, her parents own a snowplow and a bulldozer) that attracts thousands of visitors. When angry neighbors protest (“A lady warned everyone,/ ‘Make no mistake—/ when temperatures rise,/ he’ll turn into a lake!’”), Cami and her brother work to have the snowman relocated. Working in acrylic and colored pencil, Haley portrays a playfully lopsided town, but Lawler’s rhymes are often labored (“So Cami used e-mail and texting and blogging/ to save all their effort spent packing and slogging”) and the ending feels pat. Ages 4–8. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

PreS-Gr 1—Lawler opens with this Dr. Seuss-like stanza: "It snowed without stopping/for week after week./When it ended at last,/Cami Lou took a peek." Cami Lou (whose name is reminiscent of Dr. Seuss's Cindy Lou Who) makes terrific use of a snow-packed landscape to create, with the help of her mother, father, and younger brother, the biggest snowman ever. "Thousands of people rode buses to see/the towering snowman, as tall as a tree." The burst of tourism is disrupted by petty neighbors, and the case against Snowzilla makes it all the way to court. Readers won't have much time to worry as the irrepressible Cami Lou thinks, emails, texts, blogs, and community organizes her way out of this modern dilemma. Lawler's rhymes occasionally sound contrived, but they scan beautifully. Haley's offbeat, busy, and chaotically colorful cartoon-style illustrations are a lively complement to the bouncy text.—Susan Weitz, formerly at Spencer-Van Etten School District, Spencer, NY

School Library Journal

Community dissension and compromise are brought down to a kid's level in this tale of a giant snowman. With a little help from their family, some equipment and Mother Nature, Cami Lou and her little brother build a huge snowman sporting a hat, scarf and arms with five mittens/gloves each. "Then Cami Lou cheered / as she stood down below. / ‘We'll call you Snowzilla! / Our giant of snow!' " People come from all around to see Snowzilla, but when the townspeople complain of blocked views, scared pets and the threat of flood, the judge rules that he must go. The modern-day girl turns to social media to save her snowman, and the next day, in an operation that could be likened to the moving of the Cape Hatteras lighthouse, people turn out in droves to help hoist and move Snowzilla. But for all the hoopla, Cami Lou is not particularly sad when Snowzilla melts--she is busy planning something even bigger for next year, a disconnect that might catch readers' attention. Haley's brightly colored acrylic-and–colored-pencil artwork lends a festive feel to the text. Over-the-top patterns and styles of winter clothing, along with the hairstyles and grimaces of the sourpusses, give her characters personality. The power of a community to pull together and solve problems is definitely in evidence here, though the tale's sheer implausibility and its sometimes-stumbling rhythms may turn readers off. Ultimately like Snowzilla--fluff. (Picture book. 4-7)

Kirkus Reviews