A Winter's Tale

A Winter’s Tale is a picture book aimed at children four to seven years old, written by veteran Canadian author and illustrator Ian Wallace, and published in 1997. Unlike his previous, heavily symbolic work, this book features a deceptively simple plot and instead focuses on the immediacy of the senses and the meaningful nature of even small experiences for a young child. The story follows a young girl on her first winter camping trip with her family, with special attention paid to the exhilaration of finally being old enough to participate in a long-awaited rite of passage.

Abigail is a girl who has recently turned nine years old. All her life, she has wanted to go camping in the snowy countryside with her father and older brother Eugene, who take an annual camping holiday together. Until now, her father has said that she is too young to go with them, but at long last, her wish has come true, and the birthday present she asked for is happening.

The trio leaves the city where they live and set out into the forest. The snow is so deep that they must make their way on snowshoes. Finally, they reach their camp site near a frozen-over lake, and begin the laborious but joyful process of setting up camp. Abigail climbs up on a large old rock and surveys the view, seeing “the beauty of the bush…a pristine landscape rolling with hills as silent as sleeping polar bears.”



Together, they work to build a lean-to shelter out of fallen branches, with a bed made out of pine boughs underneath. It is hard work, and Abigail is thrilled that the exertion of finding the right kinds of branches and the effort of aligning them correctly has left her happy, hungry, and triumphant after they finish.

But just before they start making dinner, Abigail discovers a young deer fawn out on the ice. Surprised that it isn’t running away, she realizes that the fawn has gotten its legs tangled in fishing line left over from the fall. The family considers what to do, and Abigail has an idea: she will distract the deer with some food, and that way her father and brother can safely hold it still with their arms in order to cut its legs free.

The plan works perfectly, and the fawn skips away into the trees. After the three family members make a hearty soup for dinner, snuggle into sleeping bags around their warm fire, and go to sleep while watching the beautiful sunset, a deeply relieved Abigail thinks to herself, "This day was the best birthday gift ever."



Wallace’s illustrations help support the fierce simplicity of the story he is telling. The images are bright and crisp, with colors limited to blues and reds that contrast sharply with the brilliant frost-white of snow. While his acrylics are highly saturated, his color blocks are also heavily textured, filling the images with depth and detail. The effect combines to give the reader a strong sense of the brightness of the snow and the darkness of the shadows cast by the trees, the warmth of the stew the family eats and the chill in the air, and the cloudless skies and the multicolor sunset.