As always, a joyful and leisurely wait and celebration – Translator’s Afterword to “Amos’s Snowy Day”

Four­teen years is enough for a tod­dler who just fell asleep lis­ten­ing to “Amos’ Sick Day” to grow into a col­lege stu­dent; it is also enough for the young cre­ative cou­ple, Philip and Erin, who were just start­ing out and strug­gling in Brook­lyn, to become par­ents who now live in a cen­tu­ry-old barn in Michi­gan and raise their own chil­dren.

How­ev­er, when I opened this lat­est book, *Amo’s Snowy Day* (A Snow Day for Amos McGeeWhen I read this, a won­der­ful feel­ing welled up in my heart, and I could­n’t help but announce to my fel­low read­ers on Wei­bo: “This is a new chap­ter that fol­lows ‘Amo’s Sick Day’ and ‘Amo’s Late Day.’ Unlike the sec­ond book, the third book feels clos­er to the orig­i­nal fla­vor of the first book.”“

Yes, the orig­i­nal fla­vor, still the one we’ve been long­ing for—quiet, slow, and joy­ful, plus a touch of antic­i­pa­tion and the sur­prise that comes with wait­ing.

In the pre­vi­ous book, *Amo’s Late Day*, Amo, whose life was as pre­cise as clock­work, was so excit­ed about sur­pris­ing his friends that he could­n’t sleep, result­ing in a minor “late” mishap. That occa­sion­al lapse in judg­ment was endear­ing, but it always made you wor­ry for this old-fash­ioned gen­tle­man. This time, how­ev­er, Amo is back, with his sig­na­ture com­po­sure.

The sto­ry begins even “slow­er” than the first book. For half the entire book, Amo does one thing—wait.

Look at how Amo “waits”—as win­ter approach­es, unlike us who stare at our phone screens check­ing the weath­er fore­cast, he wraps him­self in his famil­iar warm blan­ket and sits by his old-fash­ioned radio. The book says, “Amo likes to imag­ine the radio as a crack­ling fire­place. Every day, he warms him­self with the var­i­ous pos­si­ble good news com­ing from the radio.”“

What a won­der­ful phi­los­o­phy of life! In this chaot­ic era, we seem to have for­got­ten how to wait grace­ful­ly. We are always urg­ing, always anx­ious. But Amo tells us that “wait­ing” itself is part of life, even a joy­ful part. When the radio says it’s just rain­ing or windy, he does­n’t get annoyed, he just pours him­self anoth­er cup of tea. And when he hears it’s going to snow, he does­n’t rush out, but picks up his knit­ting sticks instead.

Amo still took the No. 5 bus to the zoo, but this time, unlike the first and sec­ond times, he was­n’t busy “going to work.” Instead, he brought a bag full of good wish­es to “vis­it the set.”

Please pay close atten­tion to the red gifts in the book. Against the back­drop of Erin E. Stead­’s sig­na­ture wood­cut prints and cool, under­stat­ed blue and white win­ter hues, the reds woven by Amo—pom-pom hats for ele­phants, thick socks for pen­guins, scarves for rhinos—stand out bril­liant­ly. This reminds me of Ezra Jack Keats’ Calde­cott Medal-win­ning *Snowy Day*.The Snowy Day(And then there’s) Lit­tle Peter, dressed head to toe in a red snow­suit. This might be Erin’s sub­tle way of pay­ing homage to her pre­de­ces­sors’ clas­sic works, but it’s also a visu­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the warmth of friend­ship.

In Erin’s writ­ing, every move­ment of Amo is worth savor­ing. In a recent inter­view, she men­tioned that she pays close atten­tion to Amo’s move­ments in space, espe­cial­ly how his “skin­ny body” bends his back and leans towards oth­ers. She said that these body lan­guages are telling a secret:““I’m try­ing to empathize with you.“Yes, empa­thy. Philip C. Stead believes it’s the only lan­guage humans and ani­mals can tru­ly share. And Erin says, “I want to tell read­ers: Amo is a per­son who always tries his best and is full of good­will.”“

This explains why, when the snow did­n’t arrive as expect­ed, and Amo, though some­what dis­ap­point­ed, still peace­ful­ly returned home, the ani­mals once again did some­thing that warmed our hearts. In “Amo’s Sick Day,” they took a car to care for the sick Amo; in “Amo’s Snowy Day,” they left their com­fort­able den, shov­el­ing snow all the way to Amo’s door. It was­n’t because they need­ed Amo, but because they knew that Amo need­ed them too.

Behind this return to cre­ative work lies a sig­nif­i­cant shift in the cre­ator’s mind­set.

You might recall that I men­tioned their some­what leg­endary cre­ative and award-win­ning expe­ri­ences in the first trans­la­tor’s after­word. Their debut nov­el, Erin’s first major work, *Amos’s Sick Day*, won the Calde­cott Medal, but that weighty award brought Erin immense pres­sure. She even had to hide the medal, afraid to look at it too often, lest she feel bur­dened (afraid it would become her “last book”).

So many years have passed, and Erin can now look at her medals with ease. She says the role of Amo brought her a kind of…““A beau­ti­ful bur­den”—Because such a kind char­ac­ter has been cre­at­ed, read­ers often expect the cre­ator to be kind and gen­tle them­selves. What a pre­cious expec­ta­tion that is!

Now that Philip and Erin are par­ents them­selves, they have a deep­er under­stand­ing of “Amo’s world.” In a recent video con­ver­sa­tion, Philip said some­thing that par­tic­u­lar­ly touched me. He said that for adults, “wait­ing for snow” might just be a triv­ial mat­ter in life, even a bit of a has­sle;But for chil­dren, this is their whole life..

So they decid­ed to reopen the doors of the Amo fam­i­ly home in this noisy, tur­bu­lent, and uncer­tain world. Philip said, “Amo’s sto­ry…”““Not try­ing to drown out the noise in the room””(It does­n’t try to talk above the vol­ume of the room); it just stays there qui­et­ly, invit­ing you to come in.

This “invi­ta­tion” is vivid­ly por­trayed in the cli­max of the book.

When the snow final­ly fell silent­ly dur­ing the night (note the breath­tak­ing­ly beau­ti­ful snows­capes on those pages), the next morn­ing, all the wait­ing was reward­ed. A word­less dou­ble-page illus­tra­tion appeared in the book: Amo and his friends were speed­ing through the snow. Pen­guins glid­ed on their bel­lies, tur­tles som­er­sault­ed (or were they being used as sleds?), ele­phants clum­si­ly and joy­ful­ly trudged through the snow… There were no words here, but you could almost hear their clear laugh­ter pierc­ing through the pages.

At this moment, all the “slow­ness” trans­forms into “joy”.

When the edi­tor asked me to write a rec­om­men­da­tion for this book, I almost blurt­ed out:““For some­one whose life is near­ly com­plete, every day that brings change (whether ‘good’ or ‘bad’) is a hol­i­day.”‘This is also a rec­om­men­da­tion for the “Amos Tril­o­gy” as a whole.

Isn’t this exact­ly what Amo’s life is like? Being sick is a hol­i­day of mutu­al help; being late is a hol­i­day of sur­prise; snow is a hol­i­day of rev­el­ry. Even if it does­n’t snow, that qui­et after­noon of weav­ing and embrac­ing hope is itself a cel­e­bra­tion.

At the end of the sto­ry, the tired friends squeezed into Amo’s small house with yel­low striped wall­pa­per. Erin once joked that get­ting big guys like ele­phants and rhi­nos to squeeze into Amo’s lit­tle house was her favorite chal­lenge, because although it did­n’t make sense phys­i­cal­ly, it made per­fect sense emo­tion­al­ly—As long as hearts are togeth­er, even the small­est house can hold the great­est friends.

Every­one sat togeth­er drink­ing hot choco­late. Amo said, “I’ll make the hot choco­late.” Then, the book reads:“Before any­one could even speak, Amo added an extra marsh­mal­low to each cup.”

Read­ing this, I could­n’t help but smile. This is Amo, this is that qui­et, com­posed, yet always charm­ing old man who finds joy in every moment. That extra marsh­mal­low rep­re­sents his over­flow­ing love for life and his friends.

In this per­haps cold and anx­ious win­ter, may this book, “Amo’s Snowy Day,” warm your and your child’s hearts like a cup of hot choco­late with extra marsh­mal­lows.

May we, every day, whether fac­ing “good” or “bad” changes, turn around and gen­tly say to those around us and to the world:

hap­py hol­i­days!

Writ­ten by A‑Jia on Decem­ber 29, 2025

Bei­jing, where the first snow had not yet melt­ed

»»»

A trib­ute to the return to a slow, joy­ful, and qui­et life – Trans­la­tor’s after­word to “Amo’s Late Day”

A peace­ful, qui­et, leisure­ly, and joy­ful life that I yearn for—Translator’s After­word to “Amo’s Sick Day”

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