What We Are Reading - Snow

Winter brought just a bit of white stuff to our region so far.  After Snowmaggedon last year, I am much prefering the little bits this year.  In honor of the first snow fall, we got some snowy books from the library which we also used as companions for our nature study.

Snow Ponies by Cynthia Cotten is a beautiful imaginative description of a snow storm in which the ponies are the bringers of the snow.  The illustrations are beautiful to me and truly capture the feeling of the snow storm that comes. They are the soft muted colors of winter and Froggy did not care for them as much as others.  Through the story we visit with some animals in their winter garb as they watch the snow settle in First we meet a white tailed deer standing magestical in the woods.  We also meet a gray squirrel,red fox, and a songbird.

Froggy much preferred Footprints in the Snow in which Mr. Good Wolf decides he needs to write a story in which the wolf is not the "bad guy".  He follows a set of footprints and meets several different animals none of whom will tell him who the footprints belong to because they fear he is going to eat the owner.  During later readings we looked up each of the different characters Mr. Wolf meets to see what their footprint would look like and compare it to the footprint  Mr. Wolf is following.  During the process I found a great game from the Sacremento Zoo which I printed out for us to play.

A honorable mention of the week goes to The Little Green Goose.   It is not about snow or winter at all but it is a wonderful story about love and families. Mr. Goose wants to be a father so much but has no wife to lay an egg for him.  He "adopts" an egg and hatches a "little green goose". Eventually the little green goose goes looking for his "real" father that looks like him.  But he learns that looks are not important.  His real father is the one who feeds him, keeps him warm, and loves him.