This book is wonderful and so eye-opening for my students, many of whom live in urban Oakland and haven’t had the pleasure of experiencing a snowfall.  I love asking my first graders to close their eyes and imagine the cold and the soft snow beneath them.  Then, we talk about all the different animals that live above and below the snow.  The illustrations, by Christopher Silas Neal, are wonderful.

Synopsis: A father and his daughter ski through the woods.  The father explains about all the different animals living above and below the snow, including owls, shrews, deer, deer mice, voles, snowshoe hares, bullfrogs, foxes, chipmunks, black bears and bumble bees.