She even suggests further reading, listing books and websites you can visit with your child to learn more.īut if you think your child will be bored by all this obviously 'school' stuff at the end, you can just end the book when the story ends! Then it will dig until it finds its dinner. When a fox hears a mouse, it will pounce, often with all four feet on one spot, to collapse the snow and trap the mouse underneath. The red fox has an excellent sense of hearing, though, and will actually listen for the sounds of animals like mice under the snow. Red foxes often eat small mammals like mice, voles, and shrews, but finding these animals can be challenging in winter. Then Messner offers you an index of all the animals mentioned in the book (12 TWELVE, that's a lot!) and gives you a little explanation of what they do in winter. The Author's Note explains about how subnivean zones work. If you WANT to be more obvious, there are some sections in the back. This is the great kind of book where kids are learning stuff but it's not obvious. The humans are drawn a bit worse than the animals, but okay. The cute fat rabbit, cute fat little mice, voles, and shrews, the realistic fox - all cool. The illustrations are great - I especially like the animals.

For a book about subnivean life, it is surprisingly cute and interesting.

Shadows dance in the flames.Ī girl is skiing in the woods with her parents, and she notices animal life and sometimes discusses it with her father. I lick sticky marshmallow from my lips and lean back with heavy eyes. Over the snow, the fire crackles, and sparks shoot up to the stars.

Book over and under the snow