The Snowman Code by Simon Stephenson

Snow falls soft on London streets, A girl finds friendship in the cold, Six hundred winters wait for spring.

When Winter Refuses to Leave

There is something remarkably brave about writing a children’s book that deals with mental illness, bullying, and the inevitability of loss—all while maintaining a sense of wonder that makes you believe, even for a moment, that snowmen might actually talk if only you asked them six times. The Snowman Code by Simon Stephenson accomplishes this delicate balance with the kind of assured storytelling you would expect from the screenwriter behind Pixar’s Luca and the beloved Paddington 2.

The premise is deceptively simple. Blessing, a ten-and-a-half-year-old girl in London, has stopped attending school because three bullies have made her life unbearable. Her mother Margaret suffers from seasonal depression so severe that Blessing fears being sent away again if anyone discovers how bad things have gotten. Meanwhile, London endures its longest winter in three hundred years. The climate, as everyone keeps saying, has broken.

And in the middle of Victoria Park stands Albert Framlington—a crooked, three-out-of-ten snowman with bottle-cap eyes, twig eyebrows, and a small old potato for a nose. He is also six hundred and twenty-seven winters old, bound by the Snowman Code to help any child in need, and absolutely convinced that Sherlock Holmes was a famous zookeeper.

The Architecture of Whimsy

What makes The Snowman Code by Simon Stephenson work so beautifully is its commitment to its own internal logic. The Snowman Code itself—a set of rules governing snowman behavior—becomes both a source of comedy and genuine emotional weight. Article Two demands that snowmen help children in trouble. Article Six requires disguises for daytime excursions. And article Nine mandates a great party to celebrate spring’s arrival.

Stephenson builds this mythology with careful attention, creating a world where snowmen are nocturnal marsupials (they are not, but Albert believes they are), where they adore flowers because winter prevents them from ever seeing blooms, and where they melt not into death but into water that connects them to everything forever.

The humor operates on multiple levels. For younger readers, there is the joy of Albert’s confident wrongness—his insistence that Africa is covered in snow, that encyclopedias are animal dictionaries, that the saying “better late than never” has something to do with otters. For older readers and adults reading aloud, there is the sharper comedy of recognition: the way Bartholomew Weaselton can only echo what the other bullies say, the perfectly observed detail of Margaret forgetting tomato sauce on homemade pizza because sadness makes people absent.

Characters That Breathe (Even When Made of Snow)

Blessing: The Heart of the Story

Blessing emerges as a protagonist worth rooting for—clever enough to forge her mother’s handwriting and invent an Australian kangaroo sanctuary, kind enough to keep her problems hidden to protect someone she loves, and honest enough to call Albert out when his six-hundred-year-old ego needs deflating. She speaks French like a Parisian while her bullies sound like stray dogs gargling cough medicine. She is, in short, exactly the kind of child readers want to befriend.

Albert Framlington: The Soul of Winter

Albert himself walks the fine line between endearing and infuriating. His vanity about medals, his constant competitive jabs at Jeremiah and his fake pipe, his tendency to nap through important tasks—these are genuine flaws that make him feel real rather than simply magical. When we learn why he has refused to melt, why this winter has stretched impossibly long, the revelation lands with emotional force precisely because we have come to know him as a complicated individual rather than a whimsical device.

Where the Ice Cracks

No book is without its imperfections, and The Snowman Code by Simon Stephenson has moments where its structure shows. The middle section, where Blessing and Albert search London’s parks and gardens for Clementine, occasionally feels repetitive despite the charm of individual encounters. The revelation that Albert knew Clementine’s location all along, while thematically appropriate to his fear of loss, may frustrate younger readers who have been invested in the search.

Points of Consideration

1. Pacing concerns: The thirty-five-day search montage compresses time in ways that occasionally undercut tension
2. Secondary characters: Jeremiah and Clementine, while delightful, receive less development than Albert
3. Tonal shifts: The movement between comedy and genuine sadness sometimes feels abrupt rather than seamless

These are not fatal flaws. They are the kinds of rough edges that distinguish a very good book from a perfect one. Stephenson’s background in screenwriting shows in his dialogue and pacing—scenes pop with the kind of visual imagination that translates naturally to reading aloud—but the novel occasionally reads more like a treatment than a fully inhabited world.

The Deeper Freeze

What elevates The Snowman Code by Simon Stephenson beyond simple holiday entertainment is its willingness to engage seriously with difficult subjects. Margaret’s depression is never minimized or magically cured. The endless winter is explicitly linked to climate change, and while the immediate problem resolves through snowman mythology, the larger concern lingers. Blessing’s fear of being sent away—of losing her mother to sadness—carries genuine weight.

The book’s conclusion, where Albert and Clementine melt together with joy rather than sorrow, transforms what could be a devastating ending into something transcendent. Water becomes connection. Loss becomes presence. The snowmen may be gone, but they are also everywhere, in every raindrop on autumn windows, every ice cube in summer drinks, every tear on a child’s cheek.

For Readers Who Love

If this story speaks to you, consider these kindred spirits:

• A Boy Called Christmas by Matt Haig—similar warmth with Nordic mythology
• The Christmasaurus by Tom Fletcher—magical creatures and holiday wonder
• The Snowman by Raymond Briggs—the original wordless masterpiece
• Paddington by Michael Bond—eccentric outsiders with good hearts
• The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill—deeper fantasy with emotional resonance

The Thaw

Final Verse

All water is the same, they said, So look for us in rain and rivers, In tears, in tea, in winter’s end.

A Note on How This Review Came to Be

In the spirit of the Snowman Code itself—which demands honesty as much as helpfulness—I should mention that this book arrived at my doorstep not through purchase but through arrangement. A publisher sent it, hoping for words in return. What they asked for was honesty. What they received is this: The Snowman Code by Simon Stephenson is not perfect. It is, however, exactly the kind of book that makes you want to build a snowman the next time winter arrives, just to see if speaking six times might finally get an answer.

The publisher’s faith was not misplaced. Neither, I suspect, will yours be.

Closing Haiku

Bottle-cap eyes watch, Spring comes whether we are ready— Love remains as rain.