These sweet reads will keep you cozy and smiling all through the season. We hope you enjoy this mix of classics and new winter favorites as much as we do.
The Snowball by Giuliano Ferri is my younger kid’s new favorite winter book. In it, a small mouse and its friends create a huge snowball that engulfs them all and rolls down a hill. The growing snowball is a cut out in the book that my kid loves to peek through!
The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats is the story of Peter, who wakes up and has a fun adventure on a snowy winter day. He tries to save a big snowball in his pocket when he gets home, but of course it melts. He worries he won’t be able to play again but has a great time the next day playing in even more snow.
Jan Brett’s The Mitten has become a winter classic, at least in our home. Nicki’s Baba knits him, as requested, white mittens. He immediately drops one, as his Baba feared, and can’t see it in the snow. Several woodland animals decide to share it, all crowding in together until it becomes too full, pops off of them and up into the sky, where Nicki spots it and brings it home.
Annie Silvestro and Teagan White’s Mice Skating tells the story of Lucy, a mouse who loves winter. She finally convinces her friends to join her in some of her favorite winter activities by knitting them warm hats, and they agree to try skating. My kids love how sweet Lucy is to her friends, and I love the images of the cute mice in the snow.
Natalia and Lauren O’Hara’s Hortense and the Shadow is not your typical winter story, but gorgeous. Hortense hates that her shadow does everything she does, and shuts it out when she closes the window on it. One night when some burglars approach her in the dark woods, her shadow scares them away. She realizes her shadow was trying to play with her, and they become friends. The parallels with Hortense and her shadow and my two kids is helpful in reminding my older kid to enjoy the time with her younger sibling.
My mom used to read Owl Moon to my brother and I when we were kids, and I’m delighted to share Jane Yolen and John Schoenherr’s gorgeous story with my kids. In it a kid goes looking for owls with their father, just the two of them, in the quiet winter night. At the end they spot a big beautiful owl- a sweet pay off for their patience.
Let us know if any of these are favorites of yours!