Sunday, January 6, 2008

The holiday season may be firmly behind us, but winter really has only just begun, as the sub-freezing temps of the past week jolted us into realizing. About this time of year, two distinct camps of Washington area residents are fervently thinking about snow -- one hoping it never materializes, the other giddy for a snow day (or five). If you find yourself empathizing with the latter, and need something to tide you over until the precipitation hits, there is a flurry of new books extolling some simple childhood pursuits ideal for a snowy day.

The Sled Book: Notes Concerning Winter's Favorite Pastime (Skipstone, $12.95), by Brice J. Hoskin, is certainly the most charming. This slim volume, with a vintage look, holds a rousing guide to all manner of sledding and a history of the sled's evolution from wood contraption to Olympic-caliber craft. Hoskin is a sledmaker, having left journalism to found Mountain Boy Sledworks in Silverton, Colo. And he knows how to make a hot toddy, too, as the recipes at the book's close can attest.

From winsome we kick into high gear with How to Build an Igloo -- and Other Snow Shelters (Norton; paperback, $17.95), by Norbert E. Yankielun. This is a decidedly hard-core manual for constructing snow shelters; the author is a 15-year veteran of the Army Corps of Engineers' cold regions laboratory who holds patents on several kinds of outdoor equipment. Whether you opt for an igloo, slab shelter or quinzee (a hollowed-out dome of snow), this expert's guide, enlivened by Amelia Bauer's witty illustrations, will ensure that you impress the neighbors.

A bit of competition also runs through The History of the Snowman (Simon Spotlight, $14.95). Author Bob Eckstein chronicles the cultural significance of snowmen across the globe and explores the many carnivals and rituals that incorporate them. There's the Swiss festival Sechsel¿uten, during which a snowman is literally blown to pieces, and there are elaborate snow and ice constructions from Harbin, China, to Bethel, Maine, where, in 1999, the world's largest snowman was built. Eckstein, a cartoonist and humorist by trade, also tosses in examples of hilarious snowman cartoons and casts a comedian's eye on the modern craze for inflatable snowpeople.

-- Christopher Schoppa