Frosty the Soulman by Don Lubov
Published: 2013
Buy on Amazon
GoodReads
A snowman is created, self-actualized, then melted out of consciousness in a winter metaphor for life and death.
There’s something simultaneously subversive and disturbing about an inanimate object going through the stages of death. The chapter in Bambi when two fall leaves hope to beat the odds before eventually succumbing to the pull of gravity comes to mind, as does the harrowing song the cars sing in The Brave Little Toaster before each is crushed to oblivion. Whether or not that kind of content works for children depends on whether or not the individual child is ready to handle it.
My main takeaway from Frosty the Soulman was a feeling that it looks unfinished. The illustrations are rough pen sketches colored and scanned. The rough lines can look dirty when blended with color and the edges of the paper scan are still visible. Art is subjective; sometimes the drawings appeal to me, and sometimes, like the ending frame where the snowman’s skull-like face is surrounded by yellow snow, they strike a note of horror.
Caught between an adult fairy tale and a child’s introduction to the brevity of life, it’s hard to say where to fit a recommendation, but Frosty the Soulman is quirky, to say the least.