Snow Day Essentials from Briars & Brambles Books
Briars & Brambles Books, a cozy little bookstore in Windham, has an incredible selection of winter reads. Their staff picks are perfect for curling up by the fire, their cookbooks are geared toward comforting cabin fare, and their children's section is carefully curated with the exact books you want to be reading at bedtime after a long day of skiing or snowtubing on Windham Mountain.
Snow day books for kids at Briars & Brambles Books in Windham, NY.
I asked Kim Lonecke, who is a bookseller with an elementary education degree and a local mother of two, if they had any children's books with wintery themes. She casually pulled out 23 titles! (And if you click on the books mentioned below, you can order some of her picks from Briars & Brambles’ online shop to support this beloved, independent bookstore.)
They’ve got board books for the little ones, like The Mitten and The Snowman, plus timeless picture books like The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats and Cozy by Jan Brett. Among Kim’s middle grade picks were Spy Ski School, the 4th installment of the 8-book Spy School series, along with Jean Craighead George’s My Side of the Mountain, the story of a boy who runs away from New York City to spend a year living on his own in the Catskill Mountains.
When I mentioned to my 6-year-old, Ramona, that I was writing about wintertime books for kids, she was eager to share her top 3 magical and wintery forest tales, too:
Enchantment and surprises fill Emily Winfield Martin’s Snow & Rose.
Ramona and I are both big fans of author and illustrator Emily Winfield Martin, and our beautiful hard-backed copy of Snow & Rose is one of our most treasured titles in our home library. This enchanting retelling of the fairy tale about Snow White and her sister, Rose Red, has magical full-color illustrations throughout. It involves some peril and a creepy little villain, so it might be more suited for the 8-to-12 set, but I loved reading it aloud to Ramona, who doesn’t scare too easily. I know the story has stayed with her because when we were recently walking through the woods near our house, she whispered to me, “I think I see the wise old tree from Snow and Rose’s forest!”
Kallie George invites readers to cuddle around the fireplace with the cozy critters at the Heartwood Hotel.
Another forest comes to life in Kallie George’s Heartwood Hotel series, which makes a cozy read-aloud for 4 to 8 year olds. We recommend starting with the first book, A True Home, to become fully immersed in this cast of gentle woodland characters, who run a hotel in a hollowed-out tree. It recalls the old-timey resorts of the Catskills through the story of a tiny mouse in search of a family, and each installment covers a season of her life at the Heartwood. Book 2, The Greateast Gift is the winter tale, but we wholeheartedly recommend the entire 4-book series. (And for us, a big bonus is that the main character is a mouse named Mona!)
Ramona reads “The Song of the Christmas Tree Fairty,” one of the winter fairies featured in Cicely Mary Barker’s Complete Book of the Flower Fairies.
Finally the book that converted Ramona from a sidewalks-only city girl to a serious forest explorer is The Complete Book of the Flower Fairies. (To this day, she is sure she spotted a fairy on at the Mountain Top Arboretum in Tannersville!) The fairies are organized by season, so you know exactly who to look for, no matter what the weather brings.
Briars & Brambles Books is located in Alpine Garden Village, 61 Rt. 296, Windham, NY; 518-750-8599. Follow them on Instagram @briarsandbramblesbooks.
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