Picture Books to Introduce the Young Naturalist to Winter

Back in December I read this article by Sara St. Antoine at The New Nature Movement, which discusses books as a powerful way of connecting children to nature and the outdoors. 

This passage especially caught my attention: 

This topic hit the news recently with the release of a study led by J. Allen Williams, Jr. of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He and his research team looked at 296 children’s books—all Caldecott award winners from 1938 to 2008—and found a significant decline in representations of natural places and animals over the last two decades. They concluded, “These findings suggest that today’s generation of children are not being socialized, at least through this source, toward an understanding and appreciation of the natural world and the place of humans within it." 

Last winter my children were given The Big Snow by Berta and Elmer Hader, winner of the 1949 Caldecott Award. The delicate illustrations of animals indigenous to the American Northeast seem to come right out of a nature journal. 

The first half of the text is more educational than driven by narrative, as all the various animals prepare for winter by either migrating south, gathering food, or hunkering down in burrows. 

A story does start to form when a big snowstorm hits, and afterward all the resident animals who forage for food all winter are hungry and cut off from their natural food supply. It is then that an elderly couple come out of their warm home to toss out feed for the animals. 

Though 64 years old, this book remains a clear explanation of various strategies animals apply to survive winter, and a poignant example of how humans can act with empathy toward our fellow creatures. 

Recently I discovered another Caldecott winning book that teaches about a different aspect of winter as a natural phenomena: Snowflake Bentley, written by Jacqueline Briggs Martin, and illustrated by Mary Azarian, and published in 1998. 

The book tells the story of Wilson Bentley, a Vermont farmer whose obsession with snow drove him to become a self-taught snow expert and the first to capture the exquisite and short-lived beauty of snowflakes on film. The text includes sidebars with additional facts about Bentley's work, while Azarian's hand-colored, folksy woodcuts boldly bring the story to life. 

Both of these books more than fit the bill for what Sara St. Antoine is calling for in her article. Specifically, she longs for "stories that delve deep into a natural kingdom and show ordinary people making their way there" to "get kids excited about actual nature." 

I'm very fond of fantasy, science fiction, and superheroes. But I also see St. Antoine's concern if there's little-to-no children's literature that invites us to experience the natural world in a more direct and down to earth manner. 

In addition to The Big Snow and Snowflake Bentley, I encourage parents to check out St. Antoine's extensive list of books about nature and the outdoors, categorized by age group, and found at the end of her article. 

And for more recommendations and reviews of picture books specific to winter, check out these lists: 

Children's Picture Books for Winter, 2013 by Caryn at Three Books A Night 

Little Lions: Best Kids' Books About Winter from the New York Public Library on Mommy Poppins

Best Children's Picture Books About Winter and Snow by Elizabeth Kennedy on About.com

Books That Inspire A Little Snow Adventure by Keryn Means on Walking On Travels 

Risking Life and Limb to Birdwatch

The last thing the AAA guy said was, "I have no idea how you're going to get your car out of there." 

Let me back up. This past Saturday I attempted something very foolish for the sake of my child. I tried to drive my 2-wheel drive sedan up a quarter mile, curvy drive that was covered in a sheet of ice. Why did I do something so stupid? Because at the top of the drive was a local environmental center offering a free children's program about snow. 

The center had sent out an email that morning warning that the drive was icy, but that cars were making it up driving in low gear with a bit of speed. I figured if I didn't make it all the way up, I could always just back down in reverse. I made it most of the way up, but then slowed to a stop. In my attempt to go in reverse back down a sharp curve, I slipped and backed right into a giant rock and tree. 

Now the problem when my car is stuck nearly a quarter mile up a steep, icy drive was that no vehicle which could tow my car out could get up there and pull without the risk of sliding right into my car. Which is why two days and two AAA guys later my car was still stuck. 

Thankfully, Monday morning (after two more cars got stuck on the same drive) the city sent out a salt truck. A couple of city employees dug my car out, and I was able to get a tow to pull me out. The total cost was mostly a lot of worry, a day off work for my husband to watch the kids, and a backache and sore leg muscles from me shoveling and walking up and down an icy drive. Could have been much, much worse. 

Oh, the dumb things we do for our kids. 

After I first got stuck, while I was calling AAA and fretting about what to do about my car, my daughter was cutting out paper snowflakes, dropping salt and food coloring into blocks of ice for sun-catchers, and making maple icecream. Being only four years old, she had no concerns over the car or my anxiety. She was simply having a lovely time learning about snow. 

When she finished her suncatcher, we took it outside to hang up. An array of resident birds such as chickadees and cardinals congregated around bird feeders next to the environmental center. My daughter and I watched them flutter, hop, and peck with shared delight. I looked down at her wondrous expression, and said, "Even though the car got stuck, I'm glad we came." 

(Okay, I must admit, I wish we'd just parked at the bottom of the hill and walked up. Had things gone any worse, I'd really be kicking myself.) 

I'm glad for the mindset and habits I've developed as a parent regarding my kids' education and exposure to nature. With modern conveniences, and especially living in a city, it's easy to forget where we come from, and the environment that we're dependent on, ecologically speaking. 

Winter is the season that reminds us that nature is still in charge. It is the most inconvenient and violent of seasons. School is canceled. Colds and even life-threatening flu and pneumonia become more common. People break bones slipping on ice. Trees fall, weighted down by snow, damaging property. In these modern times it is still relatively easy to ignore the harshness of winter by staying indoors. But then the heating bill arrives. 

Garrison Keillor is known for the colorful stories about harsh winters in Minnesota he tells on his radio show A Prairie Home Companion. On one episode he remarked: 

Growing up in a place that has winter, you learn to avoid self-pity. Winter is not a personal experience, everybody else is as cold as you, so you shouldn't complain about it too much. You learn this as a kid, coming home crying from the cold, and Mother looks down and says, “It’s only a little frostbite. You’re okay.” And thus you learn to be okay. What’s done is done. Get over it. Drink your coffee. It’s not the best you’ll ever get but it’s good enough. 

I don't want to worship or idealize nature. The biosphere is neither good nor bad, but awe-inspiring in its complexity, and humbling in its enormity and power.

I hope to get my children interested in the scientific investigation and understanding of nature. I also hope to instill in them an appreciation for nature as it is experienced through both first-hand experience and artistic expression. This is no simple task, as I live in the developed world in the year 2014. My children could easily go their entire childhoods without ever seeing a forest or farm. 

This week we bought some bird seed, gathered a few pine-cones, and are making bird feeders in the hopes of attracting some resident birds to our own front yard. 

Nature education must be an educational priority, just like reading and math, history and science, art and movement. That's why I drove up a treacherous, ice-covered hill, so my kid could cut paper and play with ice, salt, and food dye.  

Addendum I: Here's a wonderfully informative website about snowflakes. 

Addendum II: Since I'm on the topic of nature education, Happy Darwin Day 2014! 

A More Grounded Winter Holiday

I didn't get around to doing (secular) Christmas cards in December. I was too overwhelmed with work and other holiday season activities. But I absolutely love the tradition of sending cards every year. It's a small but meaningful gesture to friends and family that says, you're important to us.

Cards are physical, and just as a hand-written letter tends to carry more meaning than an email, a card, even a simple photo card, tends to carry more weight than e-cards. Cards are more time consuming and costly than electronic gestures, so I understand why so many people have given it up.

I, however, refuse to totally surrender to the hectic nature of the holiday season, and so instead of just dropping the cards altogether, I pushed them back six weeks and am sending out Groundhog Day cards. Since I had now ample time and I'm a woodcut print-maker, I even made my own cards, one of which you see pictured here, and had my daughter help hand-color a bunch of them. (Inside the cards I'll include the obligatory cute pic of my kids.)

I love this idea, and plan to adopt it as a new family tradition. It's so secular humanist! Here's a fun, cute holiday explicitly connected to nature and the seasons. There are no religious or spiritual trappings. And who couldn't use a pick-me-up in mid-winter after the excess and vacation days of the holiday season are long gone?

Although Groundhog Day has its origins in mild superstition, few people literally believe that groundhogs possess supernatural powers to forecast the weather. There will be no billboards erected by the faithful, urging us to be more pious in our observations of this holiday. Just contradictions between the predictions of Punxatawney Phil and all the other furry prognosticators (Buckeye Chuck, Holtsville Hal, Malverne Mel, Wiarton Willie, etc.) Such disagreements only emphasizes the playful and democratic nature of the holiday. 

Modern Groundhog Day has its origins in my adopted state of Pennsylvania. However, its cultural evolution goes much farther back and across the Atlantic. German settlers originally celebrated February 2nd as Candlemas Day. Like Christmas, that's a Christian holiday, but which marks the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple. Also like Christmas, it's clearly a Christianization of earlier, Pagan celebrations, specifically having striking similarities in its date and associated customs to the Celtic holiday Imbolc. 

Groundhog Day shares a parallel history to "Christmas", with the one exception being that it has a distinctly secular name. The term "Christmas" is stuck in a sort of linguistic limbo where it has both a Christian and secular meaning, depending on who uses (and celebrates) it.

In addition to cards, our family celebrated Groundhog Day by attending two winter festivals. On Saturday we went to the Wagner Free Institute for Science's Winter Wonderland, and heard a storyteller talk and sing about how animals cope with the coldest season. Today we attended the Briar Bush Nature Center's Winterfest, where we met many live animals, made groundhog stick puppets, and shadow puppets of local fauna.

In final praise of Groundhog Day, while I loved Bill Murray in Scrooged (actually I love Bill Murray in anything), his performance in Groundhog Day brought this once exclusively North American holiday to the world's attention.

All and all, Groundhog Day is pretty darn cool. 

Another Jolly, White-Bearded Old Man

I am one of those people who flew into a rage after seeing this holiday season's controversial Toys R Us commercial. The one where a busload of  kids are tricked into thinking they are going on a wilderness field trip to learn about trees (which they apparently find boring), and are then told that really they get to run around a toy store and take home free stuff (this revelation causes them to explode in a fervor of maniacal joy.) If you haven't seen it, you can watch it now.

For those who just watched it for the first time, if your mouth is hanging open with shock and disgust, then you have responded the same way I did. The horribleness of this ad is so painfully obvious, I'm not going to get into it. Suffice to say, it reflects badly on our society that commercials such as this get made.

Work by one of my Wagner students, a sculpture of an Aardvark placed in a diorama

As a secular humanist mom, nature and science education are hugely important to me. My kid knows the names of all the captive animals at two nature centers. We have pet millipedes because after holding a giant, African millipede at a bug show last summer, they wanted to have some of their own. We're members of the Academy of Natural Sciences and attend all the preview parties and special events.

This year I'm an artist-in-residence at the Wagner Free Institute for Science. I work with science teachers to design and teach curriculum that integrates our two disciplines. During the Wagner's summer camp, I had inner city middle schoolers draw butterflies, cicadas, and other wildlife in nature journals and create mini-dioramas of animals in their natural habitats.

Hands-on experience of nature in parks and with rescued wildlife engages all our senses and makes it real.

Dude, that's an owl! 

Drawing from life is an exercise in really looking, rather than skimming over what is in front of our eyes.

Now that I get a really good, long look, geez, those talons are seriously scary looking! 

Well-presented information in a good book takes us deeper into understanding.

Owls are predators, descended from dinosaurs. They need those talons to swoop down on their prey.

Finally, creative illustrations transcend what can be seen by the naked eye or camera lens in any single moment. They have the potential to evoke an emotional response, which impresses on us the mystery and profundity of the natural world.

Click here.*

In the library last year, the kid and I came across Every Autumn Comes the Bear by Jim Arnosky. It's a quiet sort of book. When you really get down to it, all that happens is that a bear appears, hangs out for a bit, then goes to sleep in a cave. And yet we both fell in love. What got me was the subtle beauty of the watercolor illustrations. They were detailed, yet loose and painterly. Naturalistic, yet full of unexpected color choices.

In the months that followed, I kept coming across Jim Arnosky's name again and again.  My kid expressed interest in turtles, and we found All About Turtles. I pulled a book off the shelf because of its striking cover image of an osprey, and it turned out to be Arnosky's Thunder Birds. The kid got really into bugs, and we found Arnosky's Creep and Flutter. Talk about prolific!

Jim Arnosky popped up once again while I was looking for books for a workshop I teach. In the adult section of the library, among the field guides on trees, I came across Crinkleroot's Guide to Knowing the Trees. An adorable, gnome-like man on the cover charmed me instantly. Inside he introduced himself to me as "Crinkleroot", and said he was "born in a tree and raised by bees." I took the book home and immediately read it to my kid, who loved it. Not only that, now they knew the difference between coniferous and deciduous trees.

To our joy, we discovered a whole series of Crinkleroot books: guides to butterflies and moths, animal tracking, knowing the birds, giving back to nature, and more. We checked out as many as our public library kept in stock (which was most of the series).

Even though the books were basically doling out textbook information about their subjects, because Crinkleroot addresses his readers directly and is full of personality, the kid responded to him the same as they respond to Angelina Ballerina, or any of their favorite characters in literature. The first time we went to the Morris Arboretum and saw a real log cabin, she exclaimed with delight, "It's Crinkleroot's house!"

The only Crinkleroot books the kid found disappointing were the ones titled Crinkleroot's 25 (fill in the blank with "animals", "more animals", "mammals", "fish", and "birds") Every Child Should Know. In each of these books, Crinkleroot only appears at the beginning, and the rest of the pages are filled with profiles of animals listed. The reason the kid didn't like these books was, as they put it, "I want Crinkleroot to come with us."

Even though Crinkleroot is a delightful character in a series of informative and playfully illustrated books for children, you will not find Crinkleroot dolls, t-shirts, backpacks, or other hokey merchandise. He does not star in a cartoon on Nick Jr., the Disney Channel, or even PBS Kids. You will, however, find Crinkleroot books in most public libraries and many schools. On Crinkleroot's website you can purchase teaching leaves with art and science lessons, download free coloring pages of animals, and even listen to the Crinkleroot song.

I wish Crinkleroot were as familiar a literary character as Fancy Nancy and Arthur. He is a full fleshed-out personality who presents children with facts about the natural world in a way that is engaging and beautiful. And yet, when I have brought him up to educators at nature centers and the Wagner Institute, they have never heard of him. Just like that horrible Toys R Us ad, Crinkleroot's anonymity is perhaps indicative of our society's disconnect and disinterest in the natural world.

A side by side comparison of Crinkleroot and Santa Claus

Crinkleroot looks quite a bit like Santa Claus. White beard. Rosy cheeks. Friendly expression. They're both chubby and wear a lot of red. Crinkleroot might be shorter, but then in many historical incarnations, Santa is an elf or elf-like man of short stature. (Snopes has a good article on the history and myth surrounding Santa's appearance.)

Then there are the significant differences. Crinkleroot merely lives in a cabin in the woods with his pet snake Sassafrass, consorts with nature, and tells tall tales about being raised by bees. Santa on the other hand, lives in the far-off North Pole (a place covered with shifting ice water) and has magical powers: he can fly in a sled, visit all children in a single night, and spies on all children throughout the year.

A late autumn walk in the woods

If we must associate a jolly, white-bearded fictional character with gift-giving in December, how about purchasing some Crinkleroot books to add to the home libraries of the children in our lives? Instead of putting cookies out for a mythical elf, we can take a walk in the woods and note that the nakedness of the deciduous trees signifies winter and the time when bears sleep.

* The image was Owl In Flight, an oil painting by Jane Gough.

Great Outdoors Vital to Children's Health and Education

As a city-mom shopping around for preschools, I've noticed several programs touting the kids' regular access to several acres of wilderness. One nursery school's website even features a large, colorful photograph of children running full force through a field dotted with mature trees and strewn with freshly-fallen leaves.

This emphasis on the importance of free play in nature has inspired my curiosity. Is there any hard evidence that children benefit more from playing in forest and field opposed to gym or playground? If so, what are those benefits?

One seemingly obvious benefit is to physical fitness. Indeed, there are great benefits to be had with certain types of video games, websites, board games, and many other indoor activities. But they are mostly sedentary activities. Simply being outside where there is much more space to move around in, and in nature where there tends to be more space in between points of interest compels a person to get more exercise.

In a couple of her articles on babycenter.com, anthropologist Gwen Dewar cites a few studies and provides some analysis of a potential connection between health and time spent in the great outdoors. In Kids outdoors: Beyond team spots and PE, she writes about how children in Amish and Mennoite communities tend to be leaner and stronger, and she suggests this is because of physically-engaging chores such as hauling water and chopping wood. Although Dewar is quick to point out that American children who merely live in more rural areas do not tend to be more physically fit. The idea, she insists, is to just get them outside doing anything, such as biking or hiking, rather than exclusively depending on organized sports or physical education classes to keep kids in shape. And in her article Parents stifle kids' active, outdoor play, Dewar discusses studies which suggest that more formal, adult-guided activities (opposed to free play with peers) results in kids being less active.

Much has been written about how adults in cities tend to be more active than their suburban counterparts. The simple fact that city folks have access to public transit or live within walking distance to many stores, banks, post offices, and such means that they at least walk more average steps in a day. When Morgan Spurlock went on his McDonald's diet for a month for the film Supersize Me, he also restricted his movement to that of the average American, and living in the city that meant often taking cabs where normally he would have done a combination of walking and public transit. However, does this mean city kids are also more active than rural and suburban kids? One study suggests that the opposite is true. As reported in this article:

The report, published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, used data from a 2006 survey of school-aged children from grades 6 through 10 (ages 11 to 15). It looked at the physical activity patterns of 8,535 students from 180 schools across Canada, and then compared it to the 5-kilometre area surrounding each school. 

The study found that youth in the neighbourhoods of highest density and most connectivity between streets were less likely to be physically active outside school.

The problem is that, especially for younger children, adequate adult supervision in densely packed, narrow streets with numerous moving vehicles is difficult. Indeed, raising my toddler in the city I've found that I am not comfortable even walking a couple blocks to the pharmacy without putting her in a harness to prevent her from suddenly dashing into a busy road. (I get some funny looks doing so, but I'll take that over her getting hit by a car because I wasn't fast enough to grab her in time.) Children in suburbs and more rural areas tend to have large yards and can more safely take over quiet cul-de-sacs for biking, roller skating, and casual games of soccer. 

Beyond exercise, what other benefits could there be to children spending more time in nature? Recently a report in Scotland indicated that the creation of "Urban Jungles" (trees, boulders, and tunnels, opposed to more traditional playground equiptment) resulted in not only increased physical activity of the children, but less accidents and less bullying. 

Over a two week period in 2009 there were 76 accidents, one incident of bullying and 53 other incidents, which include pushing, hitting and slipping. 

A follow-up study in 2011 recorded six accidents and two cases of bullying. Both cases of bullying occurred when the natural play space was closed. 

Others are raising concerns that an increasing disconnect with nature leaves serious gaps in children's education that might diminish their ability to understand many concepts in science and environmental concerns.  One professor in West Australia has spoken out against the problem, particularly for city children

Dr How, who is also an adjunct professor at the school of anatomy and human biology at the University of WA, said the issue was a significant challenge to biodiversity education. 

He said this held serious consequences for children's health but also environmental conservation because the next generation could not protect and appreciate what they did not understand.  

There the State Government is spending two million dollars on a "Nature Play" program to encourage children to experience and learn about the outdoors. 


Recently, Michael D. Barton expressed many of the same concerns in guest article for the Foundation Beyond Belief's blog, titled Humanist Perspectives: Connecting Children to Nature. Barton writes about his concerns that education about evolution, the environment, and developing a personal connection to nature through first hand experience is lacking in public schools, and that as a parent he feels it is his responsibility to supplement his child's education in those areas. He does this not only by having lots of relevant books about, but by taking advantage of local parks and trails as well as nature programming at libraries and museums. He writes: 

To feel that we are a part of nature is crucial in thinking about how we want to treat this planet. 

It begs the question, can we learn all we need to know about the natural sciences from books, or is some amount of direct experience necessary? It is one thing to know something in theory. It is another to have experienced it. This is why we have children conduct hands-on experiments, dissect frogs and turn celery stalks funny colors by immersing them in cups of dyed water. Direct experience provides visuals, tactile sensations, sounds, smells, and tastes that allow us to more personally engage with the information we are taking in. These experiences also leave us with a more vivid memory. 


The more I read, the more I'm drawn to that preschool where the teachers and administrators brag about how the children go outside to freely roam the grounds every day, regardless of rain or snow. I love the city, and I'm proud and enthusiastic about raising my children in a place with so much culture, diversity, and sense of community. But I also want my kids to regard physical activity as something spontaneous and joyful, not only as scheduled, formal activities. I want them to know what it is to catch a fish or swim in a lake. When I teach them about Darwin and his theory of natural selection, I want them to be able to easily imagine the experiences that lead to the ideas, such as obsessively collecting beetles, and comparatively examining finches and tortoise shells on the Galapogos Islands. And I want my kids to experience the unique sense of awe and humility that comes with staring up at a sky full of stars, or standing in a forest of tall trees, or witnessing a gorgeous sunset, or gazing out at the endless blue of an immense body of water. I want them to love this earth with a deep and honest passion, so that acting to preserve our planet in its current state is not only rational, it's personal.