Winter Books

The Sandcastle that Lola Built
I have picked out a month’s worth of snowy books for the long wintery month of January. But I’m second guessing it now. Must our storytime be so snowy?

Let It Snow!

Owl Moon
In the far reaches of the northern hemisphere, snow graces the winter landscape and shapes the activities of the season. Picture books set in winter typically feature snowy backdrops. This column takes a look at five Caldecott Award-winning snow stories.

Anita Dualeh and Her Reading Team
October 2020

Yellow Elephant
It’s always fun to catch up with one of our Read­ing Teams and see what titles have become new favorites for them. This month, how­ev­er, Ani­ta Dualeh and her sons are revis­it­ing OLD favorites: pic­ture books that were once beloved by Anita’s boys, but that they have now out­grown at ages 10 and 12. Below, Ani­ta describes what hap­pens when her Read­ing Team reex­am­ines these child­hood favorites through their more “grown-up” eyes: One evening a few months ago, I came down to our office to find my son Adam fin­ish­ing up The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats.… more

A Blizzard of Snow Books

Snowflake Bentley
We’re snowed under right now, what with teach­ing and writ­ing and, well, snow, so we thought we’d offer up a bliz­zard of books about the white stuff that falls from our skies.  Curl up with a child, a cup of warmth, and enjoy win­ter in the pages of a book. The Snow Par­ty by Beat­rice Schenk De Reg­niers and Ber­nice Myers A lone­ly woman who lives with her hus­band on a Dako­ta farm wish­es for a par­ty. … more

Weathering Weather

Come On, Rain!
Phyl­lis: Min­neso­ta has had a win­ter full of weath­er this year. We’ve just fin­ished the snowiest Feb­ru­ary on record, and now March is blow­ing down on us with the promised of wind and rain and (most like­ly) still more snow. An anony­mous British poet wrote of the weath­er, “We’ll weath­er the weath­er what­ev­er the weath­er.” We decid­ed to not only weath­er the weath­er but to cel­e­brate it with a few weath­ery pic­ture books.… more

Winter Extravaganza

The first snow­fall is like being trans­port­ed inside a snow globe. The land­scape trans­forms with a fresh sprin­kle of snow on every­thing from the trees to hous­es. “Crunch, crunch” can be heard from the boots of fam­i­lies mak­ing their way out­side to expe­ri­ence the first snow of the sea­son. Snow is an expe­ri­ence where fam­i­lies can engage with each oth­er through activ­i­ties such as sled­ding, mak­ing snow angels, mak­ing snow­men, or mak­ing snow ice cream.… more

Celebrating Ezra Jack Keats

The Snowy Day and the Art of Ezra Jack Keats
Jack­ie: This is the time of year when I read the Trav­el Sec­tion of the Sun­day paper. I just want to go away from grit­ty snow, brown yards and come back to Spring. Well, there are no tick­ets on the shelf this year so Phyl­lis and I are tak­ing a trip to the city cre­at­ed by Ezra Jack Keats. And why not?… more