Nothing Ever Happens on a Gray Day

July 3, 2023
A lanky child with dark straight hair and skin that reflects the white of the page narrates this meditation on the way boredom can turn into perception. In a last-ditch effort to fight the lassitude of a day so gray that “even the rain is too bored to fall,” the youth takes off on a rickety bicycle and rides through town, “past quiet apartments/ and loud barking dogs,” arriving at a playground enclosed by a chain-link fence. But nothing’s doing there, either, and they’re greeted only by “lonely see-saws” and “creaky swings.” Beyond the playground, though, a winding path that leads to a creek offers discoveries with scope for imagination—an old silo-shaped building (“A forgotten castle?”) and a culvert (“a deep, dark cave? ECHO!”)—suggesting itself as a place to wait for something to happen. Pared-down illustrations by Snider (One Boy Watching) feature a stick figure–like
protagonist amid a palette of grays and stylized primary shades. After an encounter with the natural world interrupts the monotony, those same hues jump out of the landscape (“Hello, red bike.// Hello, yellow leaf”) in this vivid tracing of interior transformation. Ages 5–8. Agent: Judy Hansen, Hansen Literary.

July 1, 2023

PreS-Gr 2-This book takes readers on an adventure over the course of an allegedly bland day. One rainy day, a young girl is bored with nothing to do. Imagination and adventure eventually take over when she hops on her bike and rides through town. She passes an empty public pool and a deserted playground, only to find herself at the edge of a forest. She plays in a burbling brook, slides down a steep incline littered with dry leaves, explores an abandoned tree house, and discovers that her imagination can create a world where anything can happen on a gray, dreary day. Snider's illustrations give a beautiful and dreamy aura to a mostly slow story where not much happens. Readers will enjoy seeing the subtle details throughout the book: dogs barking in the background and a squirrel sprinting up a tree. The poetic way Snider tells the story complements the beauty of the drawings on each page. VERDICT Fans of Leo Lionni and Suzy Lee will thoroughly enjoy the imagery found in this story. A recommended general purchase.-Davia Schmidt

Copyright 2023 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2023
A child finds adventure and a change of perspective on a dreary day. Clouds cover everything in a palette of unending gray, creating a sense of ennui and gloom. A child stands alone, head down, feeling as gray as the day, and decides to ride through town on an old bike. Pops of color throughout the grayscale illustrations go unnoticed--there are yellow leaves scattered about, and the parking lot is filled with bright yellow buses, but this child, who has skin the grayish white of the page, sees only the empty playground, creaky swings, a sad merry-go-round, and lonely seesaws. But look--there's a narrow winding path just beyond the fence, something to explore. There are things to be noticed, leaves to be crunched, and discoveries to be made. Imagination takes over, along with senses of wonderment and calm, as the child watches a large blue bird fly over the area. The ride home is quite different, joyful and filled with color previously ignored, reaffirming the change in the rider's outlook. The descriptive, spare text filled with imagery and onomatopoeia is well aligned with well-rendered art highlighting all the colors that brighten the not-so-gray day and allowing readers to see what the protagonist struggles to understand, that "anything can happen...on a gray day." (This book was reviewed digitally.) Quietly contemplative and thoroughly lovely. (Picture book. 5-9)

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November 1, 2023
Snider tells the story of a common experience: a tediously gray day with nothing to do. Loose-lined drawings in colored pencil and marker depict a mostly colorless world interrupted by bright bursts of yellow, pink, and blue, as the protagonist explores familiar places by bike in search of something new. After passing by several humdrum locations, the young narrator ventures out on a path through the woods and sees leaves, streams, and trees from a new perspective. The gray world opens up with possibilities and color, and the narrator finds a way to appreciate even the seemingly dullest of days. Snider's sensory-rich verbs and other word choices support his illustrations: raindrops "speckle" the sidewalk; the bike is "rickety"; trees are "gnarled." The creative, engaging vocabulary paired with the high-contrast art helps young readers learn new words and their meanings in context. Snider paints a relatable picture and leaves readers with a message: when everything seems gray, it's up to you to search for color. Karina Jha

(Copyright 2023 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)