The Big Snow

As autumn ends, the animals around a patch of woodland prepare for winter each in their own way: geese gather and fly south, a groundhog and other animals stock food and settle in to sleep, and the ones that stay active work to fatten up before the cold sets in fully. When an unusually heavy snow finally buries the woods and cuts off the usual sources of food, a kind couple living nearby notices the animals struggling and begins scattering seed and crumbs outside their door, giving the local wildlife enough to survive until conditions ease. Berta and Elmer Hader illustrate the whole sequence with real naturalist's attention, alternating detailed pencil studies of individual animals with full color spread views of the snow covered landscape, and the book reads as much like a gentle nature lesson in animal survival strategies as it does a story with named characters.

The Haders lived in rural Rockland County in New York's Hudson River valley, in a house they largely built themselves, and the woodland creatures on these pages read as drawn from direct observation rather than reference books, each species given a distinct, correctly rendered shape rather than a generic cartoon animal silhouette. It suits young children who like animals and nature more than children looking for plot or dialogue, since there is little conflict beyond the season itself, and it works well as a gentle introduction to ideas like migration, hibernation and food scarcity dressed in unhurried picture book form rather than presented as a lesson.