Penny and Her Sled by Kevin Henkes

Today's guest contributor, Benji Martin, is a librarian and educator from Montgomery, Alabama. He serves as the elementary school librarian at Saint James School, and blogs at Tales of an Elementary School Librarian. You can find him on Twitter at @mrBenjimartin.

I live in Alabama and spent most of my childhood here. It hardly ever snows. Every couple of years, we’ll get a good dusting, and even less often, a “blizzard” with snow that actually sticks.

There’s always that lingering hope, though. Every winter, when it gets cold, children and adults alike pay close attention to the weather, hoping against all reason that snow will fall and everyone will get a day off of work or school. (Everything closes here when it snows, except for hospitals and Waffle Houses.) Usually we are disappointed and when spring comes we forget about snow for a little while.

Because of where I live, I could totally relate to how Penny was feeling in this book. She wanted that snow so badly! Her parents made the rookie mistake of telling her that snow was coming. Don’t they know that a parent’s word is a promise? You don’t ever promise weather! Whenever my kids ask a weather-related question, the answer is always, “I don’t know,” or “We’ll see,” regardless of the forecast.

Reading the book, I kind of expected a very late-winter or early-spring snow just because Penny’s parents said it was coming, and in children’s books, parents are almost always right.

It didn’t snow, however, and her parents used the ol’ distraction method and got her looking forward to the snowdrop flowers that would come with spring.

There were lots of things I loved about Penny and Her Sled. It was really refreshing to me that Penny’s parents got it wrong. It’s okay for kids realize early that their parents are fallible. Being people, they’ll make mistakes and they’ll do it often.

I enjoyed the fun ways that Penny played with her sled indoors because it looked sad in the corner of her bedroom.

I also enjoyed the fact that it never snowed in the book, but Penny chose to be happy and decided to wait for something else.

Waiting seems to be a big theme in Kevin Kenkes’ books lately. I can’t help but think of his Geisel honor-winning picture book Waiting in which all of the characters are looking out of the window and waiting for something, much like Penny in most of this book.

I guess the whole point of this post is to talk about whether or not I think Penny and Her Sled stands a shot at receiving the Geisel award. I do. It checks all of the Geisel criteria boxes for me. It’s a lovely, distinguished story to my eyes. The illustrations have that classic Henkes feel. The text is just challenging enough for the child learning to read to be supported and encouraged. I think kids reading this book will empathize with Penny and her longing for snow, and will be happy with the resolution, even though Penny doesn’t get her wish.

Penny and Her Marble received a Geisel honor in 2014, and while this doesn’t mean anything for Penny and Her Sled’s 2020 prospects, I think that a new Penny book will definitely be on the Geisel committee’s radar. I feel like there’s a chance that we’ll hear Penny’s name called again this January in Philadelphia.