Winter Sleep: A Hibernation Story

By Author / Illustrator

Sean Taylor, Alex Morss, Cinyee Chiu

Genre

Adventure

Age range(s)

Publisher

Aurum Press

ISBN

9780711242838

Format

Hardback

Published

17-09-2019

Synopsis

In this cozy bedtime story, follow a child and his grandma through a winter landscape to explore how the Earth goes to sleep for winter. Spot the sleeping animals as the tale unfolds, then learn about their hibernation habits from the information pages at the end.

Co-authors Sean Taylor (picture book author) and Alex Morss (ecologist, journalist, and educator) offer a gentle introduction to the concept of hibernation. In the frosty, quiet forest, the snow blankets the ground and the trees have shed their leaves. Where have all the animals gone? Are they asleep too?

In each cutaway scene, see what the child cannot - that underground below his feet are dens with sleeping creatures, and within the hollow trunks of trees, animals are nesting. After the story, annotated illustrations explain the hibernation facts for each animal and what they will do when they wake up for spring.

Cozy up as you expand you and your child's knowledge of the natural world.

Download Extract

Reviews

A lovely picture book with a brilliant link to real life learning! This story is all about a child who enjoys going to stay with her Granny Silvie who lives in the countryside. When the child visits, s/he explores the local environment with the grandma, listening to birds sing, watching the animals scuttle around the woodland and enjoying the evening sun. However, when s/he returns to Granny's house at a later date, everything has changed - winter has come. Granny shows the child the magic of winter including the dormouse hibernating, the bats snuggling in the caves, the moths and butterflies sleeping underground and even the pond life which survives under the ice. This would be a really useful book to teach young children about the changing seasons and how they effect the nature around us. It has lots of beautiful pictures to help them to visualise the changes in both the animals and plants around us. There is a further non-fiction section after the story which gives more details about the hibernation habits of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish, birds and mini beasts as well as how we can help each of them to survive the winter. I would really recommend this book either to families wanting to learn about animals throughout the seasons or to teachers. Picture Book / Ages 5+ / Reviewed by Lucy Newton, Teacher