''The Snowman'' is a wordless children's

picture book A picture book combines visual and verbal narratives in a book format, most often aimed at young children. With the narrative told primarily through text, they are distinct from comics, which do so primarily through sequential images. The images ...

by British author

Raymond Briggs Raymond Redvers Briggs (18 January 1934 – 9 August 2022) was an English illustrator, cartoonist, graphic novelist and author. Achieving critical and popular success among adults and children, he is best known in Britain for his 1978 story ...

, first published in 1978 by

Hamish Hamilton Hamish Hamilton Limited was a British book publishing house, founded in 1931 eponymously by the half-Scot half-American Jamie Hamilton (''Hamish'' is the vocative form of the Gaelic Seumas eaning James ''James'' the English form – which was ...

in the United Kingdom, and published by

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

in the United States in November of the same year. 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

coloured pencil A colored pencil (American English), coloured pencil (Commonwealth English), pencil crayon, or coloured/colouring lead ( Canadian English, Newfoundland English) is an art medium constructed of a narrow, pigmented core encased in a wooden cylindri ...

s. Briggs said that it was partly inspired by his previous book ''

Fungus the Bogeyman ''Fungus the Bogeyman'' is a 1977 children's picture book by British artist Raymond Briggs. It follows one day in the life of the title character, a working class Bogeyman with the mundane job of scaring human beings. The character and all relate ...

'': "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."

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 the ''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 disputed the idea that the book is a Christmas book, noting that it was only the animated adaptation that introduces this element.

Awards

In the United Kingdom, it was the runner-up for the

Kate Greenaway Medal The Kate Greenaway Medal is a British literary award that annually recognises "distinguished illustration in a book for children". It is conferred upon the illustrator by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) ...

from the

Library Association The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, since 2017 branded CILIP: The library and information association (pronounced ), is a professional body for librarians, information specialists and knowledge management, knowle ...

, recognising the year's best children's book illustration by a

British writer British literature is literature from the United Kingdom, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands. This article covers British literature in the English language. Anglo-Saxon (Old English) l ...

. In the United States, it was named to the

Lewis Carroll Shelf Award The Lewis Carroll Shelf Award was an American literary award conferred on several books annually by the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Education annually from 1958 to 1979. Award-winning books were deemed to "belong on the same shelf" ...

list in 1979.

Adaptations

The book was adapted into a half-hour animated television film in 1982, which debuted on

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...

in the United Kingdom on 26 December. ''The Snowman'' film was nominated for an

Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film The Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film is an award given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) as part of the annual Academy Awards, or Oscars, since the 5th Academy Awards (with different names), covering the year ...

and has become an annual festive event, inspiring multiple spin-offs including a concert work, stage show, video game and an animated sequel.

Notes

References

External links

Official Snowman Website
* —immediately, first US edition {{DEFAULTSORT:Snowman, The 1978 children's books British picture books Christmas children's books Hamish Hamilton books Novels by Raymond Briggs Picture books by Raymond Briggs Pantomime comics British children's books Fictional snowmen Books adapted into plays Novels adapted into video games