Where Do They Go?: Over and Under the Snow by Kate Messner

OVER THE SNOW I GLIDE.

INTO THE WOODS.

As a boy and his dad ski into the winter woods, the boy's eye catches a flash of color as a red squirrel suddenly zips from sight.

"WHERE DID HE GO?"

"UNDER THE SNOW," DAD SAYS.

Dad tells the boy that many animals keep food stores under the snow, like the red squirrel, who can forage for the scent of nuts and berries he has stored in the space between the slightly melted snow and the cold ground below. And he's not the only creature to make use of that cold locker. Rabbits and hares also visit their secret safe under the snow-- and voles, deer mice, shrews, and ground squirrels have their own larders of nuts and fruit with rinds. Some sleep most of the time in semi-hibernation. They snooze in underground nests and tunnels, where they can wake to eat from time to time from their goodies or sleep long days to conserve their internal fat stores.

As the boy glides up the hills and down, he also sees the wakeful predators, watching for any sign of an animal above the snow. Foxes and owls pounce powerfully if their sharp ears detect a sound from below the snow.

Dad shows him where the sharp hooves of deer leave their tracks behind in the snow.

UNDER THE SNOW THE FAT BULLFROGS SLEEP, DREAMING OF WHEN THEY HAD TAILS.

And down below the snow, beavers in their dens dine on carefully selected supplies of pinecones and bark in their warm dining rooms with a view of the water.

In what seems like a cold and deserted landscape as father and son ski through, forest animals are living in places hidden and unseen, finding food in the frozen stillness of winter, in Kate Messner's Over and Under the Snow.

There is much to learn from the careful ways of animals in winter in this primary lesson on animal behavior and survival in Messner's pleasantly plotted book. Artist Christopher Silas Neal's craftily rendered illustrations display the double levels of life in the winter woodlands, useful for meeting the requirements of the animal science curriculum for the primary grades.

"Beautifully rendered," writes Horn Book Magazine in a starred review.