Fiction

Toby and the Snowflakes

By Judith Halpern

Toby and the Snowflakes is a sweet story about a little boy and Toby and how he copes with his best friend moving away. All Toby’s best friend left him was his baseball glove that smells like parmesan cheese. As Toby is checking the mail to see if his friend has sent him anything, a snowflake falls and begins to talk to Toby. Toby and the snowflake end up playing, and Toby begins to make friends with several snowflakes. They build snowmen and snow angels and have a great time. As they snowman Toby built, with the help of the snowflakes, begins to melt away, Toby gets said, he begins to wonder why everyone is leaving him. One of the snowflakes, Arnold, lands on Toby’s glove and tells him, “we all have to go sometime…. That is the nature of snowflakes.” Just as Toby starts to get upset about being left alone he hears a little boy say, “Hello.” Toby has a new neighbor! His name is Gary and as the story ends the boys’ friendship begins and they play and play together. I would use this book in the classroom with younger students mostly, but that is not to say it cannot be used in a classroom with older students. With the younger students I would read them the story and have them journal about a time where they felt like Toby did in the story. They could journal about many different things, a friend moving away, playing in the snow, or making a new friend. I would encourage students to relate their experience to Toby’s, this would really help beginning writers work on their writing skills!