Just One Flake by Travis Jonker (Abrams, October 2023) is a short and cute picture book featuring one kid who desperately wants to catch a snowflake on his tongue — just one! It’s finally snowing. But catching a snowflake on his tongue turns out to be more difficult than he expected. My daughter was so

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Ice Cycle by Maria Gianferrari, illustrated by Jieting Chen (Millbrook Press, 2022) is subtitled “Poems about the Life of Ice,” and I must say that, just as I had never considered the variety of animals living near icebergs, I had never considered varieties of ice on which those animals live! Yes, as Gianferrari shows in

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No Two Alike by Keith Baker (Beach Lane Books, 2011) celebrates the uniqueness of winter with gorgeous digital paintings of two birds enjoying nature. The text is rhythmic and rhyming, and provides a gentle framework for the how nothing is completely alike – snowflakes, fences, trees. The ultimate conclusion is that the birds are similar

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Lemonade in Winter by Emily Jenkins, illustrated by G. Brian Karas (Schwartz and Wade, 2012) is a clever story to teach about money. A brother and a sister have decided to have a neighborhood lemonade stand, despite the fact that it is the middle of winter and snow covers the ground. Their parents suggest they won’t have

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Over and Under the Snow by Kate Messner (Chronicle, 2011) captures the fascinating natural worlds below the snow. As a child cross-country skis with her father, she learns about the animals hiding underneath her feet. In beautiful illustrations, the over and under natural worlds are revealed. Raisin loved finding the mice, bears, bullfrogs, and so forth in

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The Big Snuggle-Up by Brian Patten (illustrated by Nicola Bayley; Kane Miller, 2011) is a story of a young child inviting a scarecrow in from the cold on a snowy evening. After the scarecrow comes in, the other animals outside want to come in and get warm too. As the evening settles, a crowd of animals,

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Perfect Soup by Lisa Moser and illustrated by Ben Mantle (Random House, October 2010) tells the simple story of Murray the mouse that wants to make “perfect soup.” When he finds himself short a carrot, he tries to borrow one from someone else but the farmer wants him to help in order to “earn” the carrot. One thing

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I certainly hope there is not snow in the coming 48 hours, but in honor of one last crazy storm this winter-ish season, here’s one more “snow day” book that Raisin and I enjoyed. It’s one that would be fun any time of year. Zoo Flakes ABC by Will Howell is a fabulous ABC art

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Given the two feet of snow that fell on my community yesterday, I feel it’s appropriate to focus on some of the snowy day books my son and I have enjoyed lately.  Raisin loves snow and especially snowmen, so I searched out some potential favorites even before this week’s storm hit. In addition to those

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Part ghost story and part mystery, The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield (published 2006) captures the power of stories and books in a lonely life.  Amateur biographer Margret Lea is invited to write the story of Vita Winter, aging popular writer with more than fifty published works to her name. Although the two women are

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