The Big Snow, by Berta and Elmer Hader, won the Caldecott Medal in 1949. It’s a lovely book for children about the animals in the forest getting ready for a long winter. The illustrations are wonderful, and it shows how each of the animals prepares for “the big snow.”  Some animals pack away food, some hibernate, some migrate south, and some simply stay for the winter. In this story, however, the winter was a particularly hard one for the animals that stayed put, so the kindly couple that lived in the stone house (most definitely Berta and Elmer Hader!), helped the animals by spreading seed and corn, hay and bread each day during the snowiest time. It was a book that definitely deserved the Caldecott Medal!

I read this book as part of my year-long celebration of turning 70 years old. This book won the Caldecott Medal in 1949, my birth year.