The Blizzard's Robe

I loved the pictures! i gave it to my nephews for christmas to read with their parents...

A story told to explain the Northern Lights. It is about a tribe called "the People Who Fear the Winter Night", and member of their tride, named Teune, who is a great robe maker. During the winter nights, everyones fire went out because of the Blizzard. Teune puts all her robes on her fire to keep it roaring. It destroys the Blizzard. Later, the Blizzard visits her in her dreams. He tells her that if he makes him a new robe, he will give her tribe a great gift. So she goes out and starts making him his ice robe. After the leader of the tribe realizes that she is making a robe for the Blizzard he gets angry and threatens her. But before he destroys the robe, and Blizzard takes it. In return, the Blizzard gave them the Northern Lights, so they don't have to spend all that time in the dark.

I bought this book for my son and found it a joy to read myself. Too many books talk down to kids and over simplify the story. This book doesn't do that and communicates the story effectively. The artwork is intricate, filled with jewels of details and rich colors. I wish more books (children's and adult) were crafted with such love and care. I make a rule to only buy books that I would want to read myself for my child. This book is one to keep for the long run.

I read this book to my daughter's second grade class (7 & 8 yr. olds) after a recent New England Blizzard. The beautiful, poetic words and colorful, intricate pictures mezmerized the class. The children asked that I continue to hold up the pictures after I had read each page so they could take in all the details of the drawings. The full page with the drawing of the Robe has only one sentence, but I held up the picture for at least 3 minutes! There is so much detail. The children gasped and cheered at certain points in the story and clapped when the book was finished. We all loved this book.

This book's magnificent art, done in batik, catches the eye first, but the story is equally powerful and lyrically written.The People Who Fear the Winter Night fear Blizzard's terrible storms most of all. They rejoice when sparks from Teune the robemaker's fire destroy his robe and leave him powerless. Teune, however, feels only sadness. In a dream, Blizzard promises a great gift for her people if she will sew a new robe for him. Teune risks the anger of her people to do what she knows is right.Nothing in the book indicates whether this is an original story or a retold folktale. Sabuda does use traditional folk motifs in the art.