I Hear the Snow, I Smell the Sea is a picture book about a young blind girl exploring the changing seasons. In the story, the main character, Neveah, demonstrates her perceptions of and appreciation for the world around her.
Beginning in winter, with the building of a snow friend, Neveah is engaged in a variety of incidental learning experiences that are supported by her mother.
In spring, Neveah identifies the familiar scent of a hyacinth, the song of a robin, and mimics the teeth-tingling bzzzz of a bee.
In summer, the crash of ocean waves draws Neveah to the shore, where, at first supported by her mother and then buoyed by the ocean water, Neveah experiences the weightlessness of floating on the sun-warmed surface of the water.
In autumn, after raking leaves into a heap, Neveah explores the size of the pile, and encouraged by her mother leaps and plops into the leaves where she grabs them by the armful, flinging them into the breeze.
Neveah shares the wonder of each season as she experiences it.
The inspiration behind this book
The inspiration for I Hear The Snow, I Smell The Sea was my students. The main character in I
Hear The Snow, I Smell The Sea is an amalgamation of students I have been privileged to know and learn from. As a teacher for the visually impaired for over 30 years, the past 18 of which working with visually impaired and blind preschool students, I have been fortunate to have had the opportunity to support and encourage young children as they learned and developed their autonomy.
Many every day tasks my students face can at first be challenging and a little frightening if
they’ve not had experience with them. For one of my young students, washing hands in the sink, and specifically the sound of the water rushing from the tap, was scary. Previous to coming to school, this child’s hands were cleaned with a wet wipe due to her fear.
In preschool, learning is messy, and washing hands becomes a necessary skill practiced multiple times throughout the school day. To best support my student, I had to try to perceive the task as she might, from her height, with her visual impairment and sensitivity to sound. I offered hand under hand assistance in which she had the autonomy to explore or to stop the exploration. Step by small step, she mastered turning on the faucets, locating and the dispensing soap, scrubbing her hands, turning off the faucet, obtaining paper to dry her hands, and locating the trash to throw the paper away. I’ll never forget the day, crowing with confidence, she called everyone over to the sink to show off her skills.
In I Hear The Snow, I Smell The Sea, I hoped to write a picture book in which children who are
visually impaired and blind find themselves represented in ways that empower their
understanding of their environment and demonstrates the nuances the senses of hearing, taste, touch and smell offer to the world around us.
A braille version of the picture book will be part of the National Braille Press Children’s Braille Book Club for 2026.
I Hear the Snow, I Smell the Sea goes on sale on Oct. 7th, 2025, and will be available for
purchase at B&N, Amazon, Books A Million, Bookshop.org, Hudson Booksellers, Powell’s,
Target, and Walmart.
