This enigmatic short story relates a young boy's discovery of his own imagination, which for him, it is not a pleasant discovery. He gradually imagines a buildup of snow around his neighborhood and becomes obsessed with picturing, feeling and relating to the pretended snow. Obsessive thoughts lead him into a darkening, quieting, cold and suffocating world.

The descriptions are beautiful and details fascinating and there is a masterfully subtle escalation of suspense, but this story leaves a reader feeling emotionally drained and closed, lost in this little boy's collapsing world, the nature of which remains a mystery at the end of the story.

I read this 35 years ago as a college freshman, and when a friend described her son, recently, as "between autism & depression" I immediately had to try to find a copy of it. Aiken weaves a fascinating story of a beautiful and yet terrible place that occupies more and more of the subject's world. Aiken only slowly reveals that this is not truly a snowy day in the real world. I have no experience as a professional in this area, and have only briefly read about autism, slightly more exposure depression. But "SS,SS" left me wondering if it might be an accurate glimpse into that secret, hidden world.

A chilling, but realistic, account of a young boy's slow decent into depression and isolation. Aiken is truly a master of his craft, using exquisite narrative style to draw the reader into the main character's mind.

Aiken wrote numerous novels and short stories, many of them based on psychoanalytic theory. This short story is regarded to be one of his best, a true classic.

Since no one else has reviewed it, I'll put in my two cents. This particular poem although long is very intriguing. Even my English teacher had some trouble interpretting it. I initially came in contact with it as L'Engle quoted it in one of her books. I've heard great things about a number of his poems so I'm sure this book is great as well.

This is quite simply the most breathtaking performance by a narrator that I've ever heard. This collection of truly great American short stories, most of which were written in the last 75 years, ranges throughout the country...north, south, east and west. It is just unbelievable to me that any single person could sit down and perform all these stories with an all-encompassing depth of comprehension and a complete mastery of accents...and then on top of that to provide absolutely believable voice characterizations that are totally distinct from the voice of the narrator. This guy Griffin can do a completely convincing child or woman, and then in the next breath he's either back to the narrator voice or that of a male character. I teach literature classes at the high school and junior college level and I have received outstanding results in getting my students to listen to these fine stories without complaint where previously I had to beg and cajole them to read. These recordings have engendered many a lively classroom discussion. The music and sound effects are perfect, never intruding...always in the background when you most appreciate them. You'll never hear Faulkner done better than here. Absolutely fabulous work!

I purchased this book at a remainder shop about ten years ago. It is a great favorite of my children for bedtime reading. It features tales of about a dozen hybrid animals such as rhinocerostrich and camelephant. Each animal has an original illustration and a poem about the animal. This is a wonderful book. I highly recommend it.