Although some animals hibernate in the winter or migrate to warmer places, there are still plenty of animals who love the snow! In fact, penguins in Antarctica live in snow all year round. Here is a list of 12 snow animals books to read and learn about who lives in the snow.
12 Books about Animals Who Live in the Snow:
1. Who Lives Here? Polar Animals by Deborah Hodge–
This is a fact book about animals who live in the extreme cold. Each page talks about a different animal in a couple, easy to understand sentences that are accompanied by cute pictures. Along the side are additional facts that you can chose to share or not depending on your child’s interest. This book had some of my son’s favorite animals–snowy owls and penguins!
2. The Magical Snow Garden by Tracey Corderoy–
A little penguin named Wellington, who lives in the snow, dreams of his own flower garden. His friends tell him that it is much too cold for flowers to grow here. Nonetheless, Wellington is determined so his best friend, Rosemary, helps him create his own flowers out of bits of paper, springs, gears, and other things that can be repurposed. Together, they create a beautiful garden. Sadly, a snow storm destroys the beautiful flowers. Wellington’s friends won’t let him give up, and together they rebuild the garden better than ever. Preschoolers will adore the cute, whimsical illustrations in this book. And everyone can benefit from the message, “we don’t know until we try.”
3. Winter Dance by Marion Dane Bauer —
This is a sweet story that teaches kids about how animals spend the winter. As the first snowflake falls on the fox’s nose, fox wonders what he is supposed to do in winter. The other forest animals tell him how they prepare for winter. Some fly south, others store food, and some hibernate. Unfortunately none of these ideas will work for fox. Finally, another fox comes along and shares what foxes do in winter — they dance in the falling snow! With such beautiful illustrations, kids will love looking over the pictures and seeing the two foxes twirling about in the snow.
4. Tacky the Penguin by Helen Lester–
Here’s a bird who thrives in the snow– meet Tacky, the funniest penguin! He can’t sing, dive, or march the way other penguins do; Tacky does everything his own way. At first this seems to be bad thing, but when the hunters come looking for penguins, Tacky’s odd behavior drives them away! Turns out being yourself is pretty great.
5. Little Owl’s Snow by Divya Srinivasan–
Little Owl is so cute! In this Little Owl story, the forest animals are preparing for winter. Some gather and store food, some hibernate, and some stay awake to play in the snow. Soon winter arrives and leaves a blanket of snow in Little Owl’s forest home. Even though Little Owl misses his hibernating friend, hedgehog, he enjoys the snow with his other friends. Preschoolers will love this bold, bright pictures and gentle story.
6. Ten on the Sled by Kim Norman–
This rhyming, sing-song story follows the pattern of the Ten on the Bed song. The caribou has a sled and soon his nine snow-loving friends join him for a sled ride. One by one, the animals fall off and they form a giant snowball. The animals race the giant snowball down the hill, losing friends as they go. By the bottom of the hill, only the caribou is left on the sled. Your kiddo will giggle as wolf wipes out and fox flips out of the sled. Caribou is lonely and he invites all of his friends to join for another sled ride!
7. Animals Hidden in the Snow by Jessica Rusick–
This book is both tons of fun and offers great information about animals in the snow. Each page takes a look at a different animals and asks the reader to try and spot the animals hiding in the snow. Animals use camouflage to blend in with their surroundings so you have to look carefully. Turn the page to learn interesting facts about the animal you find.
8. A Polar Bear in the Snow by Mac Barnett–
My son really enjoys Mac Barnett’s stories! In this story we get to follow a polar bear on an adventure across a beautiful snow landscape. Sparse text filled with questions to the reader will keep preschoolers engaged. Shawn Harris’ paper collage images are awesome and wonderfully capture the bear’s journey.
9. Polar Bear Babies by Susan Ring —
Learn about the survival skills baby polar bears need for life in the harsh arctic in this short book. The babies need to learn to swim, catch fish, and run around the snow. The cute images of the baby bears greatly appealed to my son.
10. Cozy by Jan Brett–
We were trying to guess what the big wholly animal is and, oh boy, were we wrong. It is a musk ox and they live in Alaska. In this snowy story, Cozy gets separated from his family and gets lonely all by himself. Not to fear because soon other animals seek warmth in Cozy’s fur. We get a great look at different types of animals that live in snow–lemmings, hares, snowy owls, foxes, and wolverines in addition to the musk ox. Cozy’s adventures continue in the sequel, Cozy in Love.
11. Here is Antarctica by Madeleine Dunphy–
This book shows us lots of animals that survive that in the cold in Antarctica. The reader gets to learn about both water and land creatures. The animals who live on the land, live in snow year round. These include three types of penguins (emperor penguins, macaroni penguins, and adelie penguins), leopard seals, crabeater seals, south polar skuas, and the southern giant petrels.
12. Fox Versus Winter by Corey R. Tabor–
Get ready to learn about who migrates, who hibernates, and who stays to enjoy winter in this humorous book. While Fox is one of the animals who doesn’t hibernate or migrate, Fox does NOT like winter. Almost all of his friends either hibernate or migrate, except Rabbit who goes off alone, leaving Fox lonely. Fox gets an idea to make new friends out of snow, but they are not as much fun as his old friends. What’s Fox to do? He decides to fight winter! Get ready to laugh as Fox gets a flame thrower and tries to melt winter. Winter fights back and Fox gets covered in snow. Just then, Rabbit appears. Rabbit teaches Fox to appreciate winter and Fox finds that with a friend by his side, everything can be enjoyable.
I hope you enjoy these snow animals books. I joined Amazon’s Affiliate program to try and help cover the costs of this site. If you buy something through one of my links on Amazon, then I get a small percentage of the sale (no extra cost to you). Thank you for your support! Happy reading 🙂
More Books about Animals in Snow:
Penguin Stories: 10 books about penguins to read with your little one!
Polar Bear Books: 8 books about these beautiful white bears.
Winter Stories: 15 stories about winter that have lots of animals in the snow.
