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One of the very best reasons for having children is to be reminded of the incomparable joys of a snow day.

Growing up in New York, I was sort of shocked when I realized that my children are Californians. They are 14 years old, and I explain to them frequently that they will never realize the glory of a snow day. You wake up and the world says, 'Oops, it's too much fun to go to school, you've got to stay home and deal with the snow!'

Snow provokes responses that reach right back to childhood.

I grew up thinking of snow as a luxury you visit.

A snow day literally and figuratively falls from the sky, unbidden, and seems like a thing of wonder.

I remember three- and four-week-long snow days, and drifts so deep a small child, namely me, could get lost in them. No such winter exists in the record, but that's how Ohio winters seemed to me when I was little - silent, silver, endless, and dreamy.

I remember wishing there was snow in L.A. And how jealous we used to get of those Christmas specials with kids playing in the snow.

Snow is so common that I have omitted to note its falling at least two days out of Three.

It was, you know, probably 80 degrees out in L.A., and my dad took me outside and there was snow. At the time, I thought, 'Every kid doesn't have snow in their backyard on Christmas?'

I wrote 'Snowy' as a result of spending a week on a narrow boat with daily classes of children, helping them to write about canal life, the work of barges, the simple pleasure of watching the water creatures. There was no doubt that the star of their week was Snowy, the working barge horse who pulled us daily along the towpath.