Snow, where are you?  You seem to be traveling a long way from home this year, en masse.  Are you not getting enough affection from northern New England?  Have you decided to try your luck elsewhere?

Okay, so I’m guilty of kvetching whenever you start to fall, but it’s not really not you that I hate.  It’s the bitter cold and—worst of all—the piercing wind.  I really shouldn’t be judging you by your friends, though, because when you’re by yourself I usually enjoy your company.  Especially when my car is tucked away in the garage.

I’m sorry, snow.  Let me make it up to you by talking about a couple books starring you.

Mark Cassino and John Nelson, PhD.  The Story of Snow: The Science of Winter’s Wonder.  Chronicle Books, 2009.  32 pages.  Age 4 to 8.

Snow crystals, the building blocks of snowflakes, are absolutely beautiful, as the magnified photographs in The Story of Snow show.  Regardless of how you feel toward winter weather, this book will give you a little more respect for it.  The text is simple, with one prominent nutshell sentence for each spread, and supplemental information in smaller fonts.  You could have a cohesive book by just reading the large-font sentences, if you wanted to adapt the book for a young child, but all of the information in the book is rather interesting.  There are no wasted words.

Melissa Stewart.  Under the Snow.  Illustrated by Constance R. Bergum.  Peachtree, 2009.  32 pages.  Age 4 to 8.

Under the Snow is a quiet, enjoyable exploration of how different animals survive the winter.  Some hide.  Some huddle.  Some slow down.  Some nap.  Some sleep straight through.  And then there’s the wood frog, who doesn’t hide too deep because he can freeze solid and still thaw out okay in spring.

It’s an interesting assortment of facts.  Many are general (frog, turtle), but others are quite specific, including the red-spotted newt, which, as it happens, doesn’t even slow down.  The illustrations are soft and subdued, and broken into panels to give things a little visual interest. I don’t know about you, but if I were going to sleep through the winter, soft and subdued would sound just about right.

[ Posted in » Book Review Channel :: Nonfiction Reviews ]