In praise of the cold, the wet, the white

Above, Antoinette Portis's Edna greets a visiting scientist; below, a Lauren Stringer illustration from ''Snow,'' which underscores that ''children love snow better than anyone does.'' (''A PENGUIN STORY'')

January often feels like the black hole of winter, and lest we fall through it entirely, we have two new beautiful picture books to remind us that the season, even at its coldest and bleakest, has its bright side. I read both in the midst of an ice storm, the perfect time to curl up with a book like Cynthia Rylant's "Snow."

Multiracial, multigenerational, "Snow" is as all-embracing and beautiful a book as we're likely to see this season. It's also an especially nice way to start off the year in children's books. Author Cynthia Rylant, Newbery medalist ("Missing May"), writes the text of picture books as well as she does novels, making her a rare, ambidextrous author for young readers of all ages. Her style leans toward the lyrical - occasionally hard enough to topple into sentiment ("it is all right to be happy") - but she also crafts beautiful sentences and stories.

"Snow "celebrates the cold, wet, and white in its faceted manifestations. If no two snowflakes are exactly alike, no two snows are either, and Rylant finds something to love in each. "Snow" praises the "snow that comes softly in the night, like a shy friend afraid to knock," and snow that falls "in fat, cheerful flakes." There are snowfalls that sift down "just enough to make you notice the delicate limbs of trees, the light falling from the lamppost, a sparrow's small feet." Snow-day snow, light snow, heavy snow, snow-angel snow: All are hymned in Rylant's gentle, rhythmical prose.

But the shining star of this book is really illustrator Lauren Stringer's art, in small panels and double spreads, hallucinatorily vivid in pastel shades of pale blue, white, and rose. The acrylic paintings blend the richness of oils with the airiness of watercolor. Stringer's snow is dream snow, childhood's magical snow, which, as Rylant reminds us, is the best-loved snow. A few of the illustrations - I am thinking especially of one rose-tinted sunset landscape - are paintings one can look at for a very long time, noticing here a moon-shaped window in one house, there a red fox sneaking off over a hill, a sweep of coral at the snowy horizon. One might read "Snow" aloud as a winter's bedtime book for toddlers or set it out as a coffee-table book gorgeous enough to enchant adults. Either way, deep in the grip of winter, it's good to remember the poetry of snow.

Antoinette Portis, creator of the best-selling "Not a Box" and its sequel, "Not a Stick," triumphs again in "A Penguin Story," another picture book rich in simplicity and humor. "Not a Box" and "Not a Stick" were nearly wordless books, using text as sparingly as if each word were crafted of precious metal. "A Penguin Story" has slightly more language but the same sense of comic restraint, the same aiming toward the visual image. In a sense, Portis the writer plays straight man to Portis the illustrator.

Edna, heroine of "A Penguin Story," suffers from a severe case of ennui. "White, thinks Edna. Like yesterday. Black. Like tomorrow. Blue, blue, blue. Forever." Where Edna the penguin lives - presumably someplace polar - there's nothing to see but snow, night, and blue sea on all sides. For activity, Edna has sliding, star-gazing, and hunting for fish. "But there must be something else," she thinks yearningly.

Like most seekers, Edna is stubborn and doesn't always see what's underneath her own beak, from spectacular penguin acrobatics among her friends and relations to a bright orange plane zipping in, bearing scientists muffled up in bright orange parkas and orange gloves. (One wonders if the scientists are as sick of orange as Edna is of white, black, and blue.) Eventually, after an adventurous encounter, the penguins all march off, triumphantly bearing the gift of one neon-bright orange glove.

Portis's genius is a comic genius, and it isn't always what's happening front and center stage that's most hilarious. Her drawings are full of secret jokes. "A Penguin Story," like her two earlier books, navigates the meeting place of vision and imagination. That orange glove functions as peculiar orange teddy bear, tug-of-war toy, inedible snack, and a nice float in which Edna rests on her back in the blue sea - or wears on her head like a five-fingered party hat. "A Penguin Story" ends with Edna wondering, "What else could there be?" as an emerald-green ship comes sailing in from the top-right corner of the last page. There's always something wonderful just around the bend. The book itself never stops playing and surprising. The language remains simple and spare, the artwork subtle. Not an inch of the book or an element of design goes to waste. Even the first set of endpapers are bright orange, the last emerald green. Portis rewards close observers of every age, which makes one want to pay attention.

Liz Rosenberg reviews children's books monthly for the Globe.