This stunning book is now available in two versions: this original large-format edition first published in 2016, and the new compact edition (2020), with a printed paper dust jacket and silver page-marker ribbon to add that extra touch of style. Both editions are beautiful and, if I were allowed to be greedy, I’d have a copy of each. This original edition, measuring a whopping 14½ by 11 inches, allows you to see every tiny detail in the extraordinary illustrations.Pembrokeshire-based Jackie Morris is an artist and writer whose name was brought to wider attention by her collaboration with Robert MacFarlane on the hugely successful The Lost Words, which was voted the most beautiful book of 2016 by UK booksellers, and for which she won the Kate Greenaway Medal. But she had illustrated, or written and illustrated, dozens of beautiful books before that – mostly for children and often involving animals. Her illustrations of animals are exceptional, and The Quiet Music of Gently Falling Snow is full of them, from tigers, lions, polar bears and elephants to dogs, cats, horses and hares. And there are people, too, and boats and buildings, and musical instruments, which is where this book began.In the year 2000, Morris was commissioned to design a Christmas card for Help Musicians UK, a charity that has, since 1921, ‘helped thousands of musicians establish themselves in the music business, get through a serious crisis, cope with long-term difficulties and enjoy retirement.’ She went on to design a card for them every year. The Quiet Music of Gently Falling Snow brings together a selection of twelve designs from the years 2000 to 2016. They are clearly a set, with their highly stylised images, recurring motifs and rich, muted colours. And, for the book, Morris has written a series of twelve similarly interconnected short stories to go with them. Characters, places and storylines appear, disappear, reappear. A story you thought was complete is picked up again in a later story, giving it a different ending. Another story ends abruptly; you turn the page, expecting there to be more, but there is not, or not immediately, at least. Each time you read the stories, you spot new connections and continuations. They are as mesmerising as the illustrations. As another reviewer (Liz Robinson, Love Reading) has said, ‘This is a book where you just sink into the pages, drift away on the words, and it feels like a half-remembered dream.’ A dream you can return to, immerse yourself in, again and again.On Jackie Morris’s website, there is a beautiful, haunting recording of the beginning of the first story, with music by Yalla Erdamani. It is worth listening to, wonderful to add music to the words and the pictures. Here is the power of music, song and voice – of the musicians who are central to this book in its themes and the original purpose of the illustrations. Here too is the power of silence, and the power of breaking the silence, with the quiet music of gently falling snow.
