Picture-Books in Winter Lyrics
Frosty mornings keep the child indoors, but the picture story-books hold summer in their pages: flowing brooks, sheep and shepherds, seas and cities, and flying fairies. Each of its five verses, by Robert Louis Stevenson, ends with the same two words, picture story-books.
Picture-Books in Winter
Summer fading, winter comes -
Frosty mornings, tingling thumbs,
Window robins, winter rooks,
And the picture story-books.
Water now is turned to stone
Nurse and I can walk upon;
Still we find the flowing brooks
In the picture story-books.
All the pretty things put by,
Wait upon the children's eye,
Sheep and shepherds, trees and crooks,
In the picture story-books.
We may see how all things are
Seas and cities, near and far,
And the flying fairies' looks,
In the picture story-books.
How am I to sing your praise,
Happy chimney-corner days,
Sitting safe in nursery nooks,
Reading picture story-books?
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/picture-books-in-winter/
- Type
- Poems for Children
- Written by
- Robert Louis Stevenson
- Tune
- Read cosily, with a smile on the repeated last line of each verse
- Best for ages
- 3 to 8 years
What Does Picture-Books in Winter Mean?
The first verse sets the weather: summer is fading, winter comes with frosty mornings and tingling thumbs, robins at the window and winter rooks. A rook is a large black bird of the crow family. And then the line that comes back at the end of each verse: "And the picture story-books."
The second verse says that the water outside has turned to stone, so hard that the child and Nurse can walk on it, which is a way of saying it is frozen. But the flowing brooks are still there in the picture story-books. The next two verses list what the books keep for the children: the pretty things put away for winter, sheep and shepherds, trees and crooks (a shepherd's curved staff), seas and cities near and far, and the looks of flying fairies. The last verse is a thank-you to the cosy winter days spent "sitting safe in nursery nooks".
The last line of every verse ends in "picture story-books", and the third line of each verse ends in a word that rhymes with it: rooks, brooks, crooks, looks and nooks. It is a poem that makes a pleasure of staying in, and that is a good thing to say to a child on a cold day.
Frozen water is not safe to stand on, and the poem should not be taken as an invitation; it is just a picture of the cold.
History and Origin
Stevenson's book came out in 1885. Colour picture books were already on British nursery shelves by then, among them Walter Crane's The Baby's Bouquet of 1878, which supplies the French words of Sur le Pont d'Avignon on this site.
Learning Activities
- Cosy corner: make a reading nook with cushions and a blanket, and read the poem inside it.
- Find the brook: open a picture book and look for water, shepherds or trees, as in the third verse.
- Make a tiny book: fold a sheet of paper into a small book and draw one picture on each page.
- Winter birds: watch from a window for robins, and talk about what they do in the cold.