Yesterday, a new review of The Story of Snow appeared on  Bookends, a Booklist blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

 “They take a rather technical subject and make it “crystal” clear for really young readers and still retain a tangible sense of wonder. This is a beautiful book and a fascinating book.”

 You can read the whole thing here:

http://bookends.booklistonline.com/2009/12/28/the-story-of-snow-by-mark-cassino-with-jon-nelson/

About the time I was typing “It’s snowing like mad” last night, it stopped snowing.

A feeble mid winter sun greeted us early this morning, and then the clouds rolled in and brought an exceedingly light snow. Come evening, barely half an inch of fresh snow lay on the sidewalks and the car windshields. I had checked the snow throughout the day only to find it to be tiny, crunched-up bits of dusty ice. But stepping outside this evening to grab a log for the fireplace, I was surprised to see that the dust had given way to some very nice snow crystals.

I fired up the camera and for brief intervals in the evening, the dust gave way to crystals, which in turn gave way to dust again. Here’s the first shot of the evening:

That one actually looks like two crystals sandwiched together. (As always - click on the image for a larger file.)

Here’s another shot from tonight – the little specks all around it are the ‘dust’ I as referring to early – tiny bits of eroded snow crystals. They make the main subject look quite large – but it was well under 1/16th of an inch in size. More shots will be coming in the next few days.

Today’s Winston-Salem Journal has a nice article about books to read on snowy days – and The Story of Snow is one of them.  You can read the whole review, Snow Days Call For Snowy Pages here –

http://www2.journalnow.com/content/2009/dec/27/snowy-days-call-for-snowy-pages/

Last week the Chicago Tribune‘s print edition featured a review of winter books for young readers by Mary Harris Russell. Christmas, Snowflake Stories Are Delightful featured only 3 books – The Christmas Magic by Lauren Thompson, What’s Coming for Christmas by Kate Banks and  The Story of Snow by yours truly.

Sorry – I don’t have a weblink for this review.

It’s snowing like mad here in Michigan. The Christmas storm of 2009 is moving along to the east, and we are falling into the northerly winds. For now it is just a dusty busted up snow with no good snow crystals so far. Once the storm passes and the gentle lake effect snow kicks in, things may get better…at least from the perspective of someone looking for snow crystals to photograph!  Best wishes to everyone who is travelling through this storm during this holiday season.

In the meantime – here’s a shot from last March:

 - Mark

Around midnight, a gentle snow began to fall. It continues to come down, but the air temperature is still hovering right at the freezing point. Throughout the night I’d wake up and peek out the window to see snow falling onto wet streets – it was just a bit too warm for the snow crystals to not melt when they hit the pavement.

Come morning, the roads were slushy and slick, but the temperature remained stubbornly warm.

You never know till you try, so I caught a few falling flakes to see if I could get their photos. They began to melt the moment they landed on the glass plate, and by the time they were positioned beneath the camera lens, they were well-nigh gone.

One shot of one departing crystal, just before it became a drop of water (click on the picture for a larger image):

Here are two faces of water - crystal and liquid forms - together in the same place, briefly. These are not the only two forms of water, of course, but it's interesting to see them juxtaposed like this.

- Mark

Last week’s storm brought several inches of hard driving, wet snow to Kalamazoo. But after the blizzard passed temperatures grew more mild, and soon patches of grass began to emerge from the melting snow cover.

A slight dusting of lake effect snow a couple of days ago is all we’ve seen of the white stuff since then. I spent a few disappointing hours out in the light snow, catching only highly irregular crystals and the broken arms of dendrites.

Here’s the one and only whole crystal I managed to photograph – it’s a start!

Great news!

The Story of Snow has been named an Outstanding Science Trade Book for Students K-12 by the National Science Teacher's Association and Children's Book Council!

The Kalamazoo Gazette ran a front page article about The Story of Snow on Wednesday, December 9.

Click here to check it out!

The weather was quite accomodating as a blizzard moved into west Michigan around the same time.

- Mark