The Snowman is a children's picture book without words by English author Raymond Briggs, first published in 1978 by Hamish Hamilton in the U.K., and published by Random House in the U.S. in November of the same year. In Britain it was the runner up for the Kate Greenaway Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book illustration by a British subject. In the U.S. it was named to the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award list in 1979.