An old barn shelters a wide variety of animals, including snakes, porcupines, cats, and a skunk, during the sub-zero winter temperature of Maine, while they wait for the first signs of spring.
Wonderful pencil drawings with the odd touch of colour show us a barn in Maine during winter. The text is poetic and gentle, and vividly describes the barns inhabitants sheltering together from the harsh elements outside.
They wait and share warm spaces. Now no quarrels over private places. Now all share to survive.
Predator and prey alike find sanctuary from winter's bluster inside a welcoming barn. Parnall's simple pencil drawings with scattered bursts of color only serve to highlight that even Mother Nature's bleakest season can be beautiful. This one will be appreciated most by older children, and old ladies like me.
Oak beams, hemlock boards, and cedar shingles linked together with pegs and nails is what this barn was made out of over two hundred years past. But it's the life it shelters during the Maine winters that brings a warmth and a comfort to its inhabitants against the common enemy: cold!