Now that it’s snowing, my daughter has started to vocally express how fortunate we are to have a home to live in, and how sorrowful she is that many people do not. She’s finally begun to understand much of what we have been talking about in terms of homelessness. She’s also wondering just how all of the animals outside manage to survive in the wintertime without a house, so we picked up a science book about hibernation and migration called Animals in Winter. Written by Henrietta Bancroft and Richard G. Van Gelder, the book explains how many common animals survive the winter. It opens with some Asian American children playing, which I also liked; too many books feature white American children, leaving so many others left out. Birds and butterflies are discussed first, and some myths about migration are dispelled. Not all birds migrate, but we learn that both bluebirds and orioles do, as well as monarch butterflies. Not all bats migrate, either; some do, while others hibernate all winter long, like other mammals, and don’t even eat until spring.

I was amazed at how many different things I learned from this book, such as the different chambers a woodchuck digs for him or herself during hibernation, including a toilet chamber. They make their own secret entrance, as well as a watchtower area to be used as a lookout. I never realized how clever woodchucks were, and my daughter thought that it was pretty cool, too—to the point of wanting to create her own woodchuck den!

I also liked how it displayed each creature hibernating, which my daughter enjoyed seeing. She just could not believe that they sleep for that long without doing anything else. She also loved watching the pika, squirrel, and mouse find food and eat it during the winter. The thing is, she wanted to know why some animals don’t hibernate and some do; it seemed to me that the smallest ones were able to find the most food, and the larger ones would require more food to survive, so that’s what I told her my guess was. We had a good time guessing and testing which animals might hibernate and which ones wouldn’t after that, and looking up our guesses online.

This is a great little book with cute illustrations and valuable information for children and adults alike. If your children are looking for answers regarding animal hibernation and migration, this would be a good place to start.