A Warm Winter

PreS-Gr 3—Living in a beautiful forest, Little Mouse awakens one winter morning and discovers that he needs to gather more firewood to warm his home for his family. Snow begins to fall as a blizzard quickly approaches. Little Mouse works hard and soon has a pile of twigs so large that he cannot possibly move it by himself. So he asks his friend Rabbit, but the two of them are too weak to make the stash budge. The friends ask Fox, who lends his sled, but all three realize that they are going to have to ask big, strong Bear for help. With the snow now falling harder, the friends start to move the large pile, but disaster strikes, and they have to make a quick decision to stay safe in the storm. While the story of animals working together to move a heavy object has been told before, there is an extra element of adversity that these characters face, and they must collaborate and persevere to overcome obstacles. Themes of teamwork, selflessness, and persistence run through the narrative and will reach readers of all ages. The setting is enchanting and the illustrations so realistically rendered that they look almost like photographs of the forest in winter. The title, A Warm Winter, has a dual meaning, and the book could serve as the basis for language arts or character-building lessons.