This book must date back to the 1940s. I remember finding it at our summer home in NH, where there were all kinds of odd books for young people about.
It is a picture book. The illustrations are similar to pen-and-ink drawings that have been colored in, quite bright, beautiful sense of line.
The story is about a girl (and her brother) in a northern country (Scandinavia?). In the winter (Christmas?) they decorate sleds with strings of colored tassels for some procession. The girl cleans house for an old woman who makes her the tassel string. The girl gets caught in a terrible snowstorm on the way home and takes shelter in the root-hole of a much loved ancient oak tree. (The oak tree is a character in the story too.) This is where she is found.
I have never encountered this book anywhere else. It doesn’t ring a bell with anyone I have ever talked to.
Thanks for your suggestions!
Found this on LibraryThing:
Florina and Ursli, the siblings featured in two previous picture-books from Romansch poet Selina Chönz, and artist Alois Carigiet – A Bell for Ursli (1945) and Florina and the Wild Bird (1952) – return in this third adventure, confronting a winter snowstorm that hits their home in the Swiss Engadine. Ursli, determined that his sled shall be the best decorated at the upcoming sledding party, sends Florina into town for some tassels. After cleaning the spinning woman’s floor to earn the tassels, Florina heads home, only to be caught in an avalanche. Ursli is wild with remorse, and searches for her, finding her alive and well, after she sheltered under the massive Weather Tree. In the end, the children share their tassels with their friends at the sledding party, and agree to replant the Weather Tree, destroyed by the avalanche, the next spring…
You are a treasure! That is it!
You’re welcome!
It’s called The Snowstorm (1958). It’s told in translated rhymes. You can see pictures from it in Google Images. According to one source, the story takes place in “Guarda, in the Engadine region of Switzerland.” I once saw a copy of it, in 2001, in Hong Kong!
Carigiet won the 1966 Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustration, btw, for his work over the years.
Thank you as well! I am so excited to finally have this information.