When It Starts to Snow by Phillis Gershator

Illustrated by Martin Matje. Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1998.
Hardcover edition, 32 pages, ISBN 0-8050-5404-9.

The sky is gloomy gray and the flakes begin to fall.

"What if it starts to snow?
What do you do?
Where do you go?"

This recurring question permeates the story as each animal of farm and field answers in turn:

"'I wear a new coat,' says the stoat,
'a king from head to toe.'
White winter fur
When it starts to snow."

"Mole in a tunnel.
Rabbit in a hole.
Wolf in a den.
Chipmunk in a burrow."

The animals are all tucked away, as there is:

"Snow on the roof.
Snow on the ground.
Brand new snow
coming down,
coming down."

The boy who poses the question finds that he can't sleep as the animals do, "when the snow wants to play."

This little story doesn't always scan perfectly, but it sweetly communicates and serves to introduce small children to the changes which take place in the animal kingdom during winter. Matje's overcast skies and murky colors reflect the quietness and dimness of the gentle snowstorm. This works as an add-on to a toddler or preschool story hour about winter.

Publishers Weekly Starred Review

The Mitten by Jan Brett

G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1989.
Hardcover edition, 32 pages, ISBN 0-399-21920-X.

Brett's signature style is simple and elegant, charmingly evocative of a northern European winter scene, in this delightful retelling of a Ukranian folktale. A lovely birchbark border with faux embroidered appliques and mitten-shaped cut-outs frames each story panel. Inside each cut-out is a small predictive scene of what the reader will discover on the following page.

Nicki begs his Baba to knit white wool mittens for him, although she warns that they will be too easily lost in the deep snowy expanses outside their cottage door. Predictably, he loses one quite quickly. A succession of increasingly larger animals looking for a cozy spot find the mitten and, one by one, squeeze themselves inside. When an enormous bear has finally strained the limits of the stretchy yarn, a tiny meadow mouse curls up on his nose. This tickles the bear into a gargantuan sneeze, which blows all of the animals out of the mitten and scatters them to the four winds. Nicki spots his mitten flying through the air and joyfully retrieves it. A last full-sized, mitten-shaped picture shows Baba looking in a quite mystified manner at the two mittens, one perfectly normal, and the other stretched into an enormous version of its original self.

Children love the repetitive nature of the addition of each new animal to the mitten, and especially enjoy the sneezy explosion, dramatically produced. Great for storytime about winter for both toddlers and preschoolers, and wonderful to explore the sidebar details on an individual basis. A rather labor-intensive craft involves coloring a giant mitten and animal cut-outs with which the children can recreate the story. The story can also be told with flannel board or puppets for a change of routine.

Narrative skills are enhanced in retelling the story with appropriate props. Toddlers develop a vocabulary of woodland animals.

ALA Booklist Magazine Best Children's Books of the 1980s
New Yorker Magazine Best Children's Books, 1989
National Teachers Association Top Ten Titles for Elementary Students, 1999
National Education Association Educators' Top One Hundred Children's Books, 2007

The Missing Mitten Mystery by Steven Kellogg

Dial Books for Young Readers, New York, 2000.
Hardcover edition, 36 pages, ISBN 0-8037-2566-3.

Annie has lost her mitten sometime, somewhere, in the activity-filled day out of doors. She retraces her steps around the sliding hill, the snow forts, the snowman, and the snow angels, finding boots and sweaters belonging to others, but no mitten. She imagines that an eagle has taken the mitten to keep her baby warm, or that a mouse has purloined it for a sleeping bag in the woodpile. Perhaps she should plant a mitten tree to tend until fall harvest, giving ripened mittens as gifts for Christmas, birthdays and Valentine's Day.

It begins to rain, and Annie is called inside for hot chocolate. Through the rain-streaked window, the melting snowman is visible. He seems to have a little red heart in the center of his snowy chest. Surprise! There is Annie's mitten!

This is a fun wintertime story for toddlers and preschoolers, filled with reminiscences of outdoor play, imaginative fancies, and a bit of a mystery, delightfully solved. Kellogg's busy hallmark style works well for group reading, but is more interesting to view up close for all of the whimsical details. Pairs up nicely with Jan Brett's The Mitten.

Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin

Illustrated by Mary Azarian. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1998.
Hardcover edition. 32 pages. ISBN 0-395-86162-4.

Wilson Bentley, Vermont farm boy of the late 1800’s, loved snow from a very young age. He devoted his entire life to developing methods of capturing and reproducing the patterns of individual snowflakes so that others could share in the beauty and wonder of these fragile crystalline structures. Martin poignantly chronicles Bentley’s struggles, successes, and unswerving dedication.

Enough cannot be said regarding Mary Azarian’s classic woodcuts which evoke turn of the century rural Vermont with crisply outlined authenticity. Snowflake studded sidebars are used to communicate interesting factoids about Bentley’s life and accomplishments, including the fact that in all of the thousands of photos he took, no two identical snowflakes were ever found.

This book can be used as the centerpiece of a program about Winter or snow. Having Bentley’s original book of snowflake photos, Snowflakes in Photographs or Snow Crystals, on hand for perusal would be a bonus. An obvious craft project would be cutting out paper snowflakes. 

Snowflake Bentley is the 1999 Caldecott Medal recipient.

Vocabulary builders include the simple science concepts of frozen water crystal formation, as well as the equipment processes used to see and photograph individual flakes. Narrative skills sequence the lifetime and work which Bentley achieved.

Winter is the Warmest Season by Lauren Stringer

Harcourt Children's Books, Orlando, FL, 2006.
Hardcover edition, 40 pages, ISBN 978-0152049676.

The author's outrageous titular postulation rings absolutely true in the hearts of those who hail from frigid climes. How can one posssibly not be toasty and comfortable in puffy parkas, fuzzy boots, and warm, woolly mittens? Hot chocolate, hot soups, hot pies and oven-hot breads warm our insides, while the emanations of the radiator, fireplace, and furry kitties in our laps heat the outsides. Steamy baths are followed by pajamas which have grown "big warm feet", and by piles of blankets and quilts on our cozy beds. We snuggle close together to read before dreaming of summer "just to cool... off".

Lauren Stringer's bold, scallopy, acrylic brushstrokes exude a sensation of coziness which belie the mounds of snow and stringy icicles visible in the wintry world outside. Her characters are joyously content in their happy home to wait for the coolness of summer.

Perfect for winter story hour, ages 2-4.

Snowballs by Lois Ehlert

Harcourt Children's Books, New York, 1995.
Hardcover edition, 40 pages, ISBN 978-0152000745.

     From snowfall to the return of melting sunshine, Ehlert's clever collages feature brightly-colored, accessorized snowmen. Appendices include photos of "good stuff" for decorating, an assortment of mitten styles, a briefing on snow and the water cycle, a family photo album of snow people, and a recipe for popcorn balls. This treasure trove will artistically inspire those who have access to the white stuff and those who don't.
    
     This book is perfect for reading at the end of a wintertime story hour before a concluding craft project of either outdoor snowman creation, or inside artwork. Beginning with round white paper cutouts for the body of the snowman, a wide variety of glueable items should be provided for personalization. Ages 1-4.

 Snowballs was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year for 1995.