Wonderful Winter Picture Books and a Fun Story Behind a Favourite

No big surprises here if you have been seeking out winter picture books for any length of time as these are popular recommendations. Just in case you haven’t been, these might be worth looking for.

The first eight are straight from our house from when our kids were younger and the final four are ones I’ve noticed since. My favourites are Owl Moon and The Snowy Day. Owl Moon made a great bedtime story and The Snowy Day was wonderful in the afternoon with some hot chocolate:).

My husband has his own childhood favourite from the list, Katy and the Big Snow, and there’s a story that goes along with it.

A few months after we met, he told me about a childhood book that had meant a great deal to him. He LOVED this book. It was in his elementary school library and he checked it out as much as he could. When he had to bring it back to the library and noticed it back out on the shelf, he would move it to a different place with the the thought that nobody else would find it and take it out. He didn’t do this just once. He would quite regularly repeat his strategy. It seemed to work. Either that or there wasn’t as much demand for the story as he imagined. Then, when enough time had passed that he was allowed to check it out again, he would. He read it over and over again.

He was drawn in both by the story of Katy, the small snowplough who mightily takes care of the whole town in the midst of a big snowfall, as well as the technically detailed drawings around the pages.

When he first mentioned the book, he spoke of it as a book from the distant past, but this was now ever so slightly into the era of the internet and I privately wondered if I might be able to do some searching around and surprise him with it.

He could no longer remember the name of the book and had no idea who the author might be, but he remembered many, many details. He thought it might be called The Big Snow or The Snowy Day. I found those two books on the Internet, along with White Snow, Bright Snow, but could see they didn’t fit the description. I filed them away in my mind to look for someday when I had children though. I can’t remember how I finally came across the right book but I did.

I ordered it, hoping it was the right one and then casually set it on a table when he came to visit. I figured if it wasn’t the right one, he’d pay no attention to it and if it was, well, he’d recognize it. He arrived, put his things down and spotted it immediately, saying, “My book! It’s my book!” He did nothing else until he’d looked through the book and read it all the way through to himself.

Twenty-two and a half years later, he still has his copy put away carefully and although the kids had it read to them, it was never in our main family bookcase;).

On with some wonderful winter titles!