Read This

Looking for another beautiful winter tale? The Mitten written and illustrated by Jan Brett gets my vote! It's a modern retelling of a classic Ukrainian folktale about a boy who loses his mitten in the snow (of course after his grandmother has warned him not to). Once the mitten is lost, the enchanting part begins. Animals come out of the woods one at a time to live inside the warm woolly mitten. Starting with a rabbit and ending with a bear, lots of animals wriggle their way into that little mitten!

Children love to follow along as each animal squeezes their way into the mitten. When I read this to my class last week, you should have seen their eyes get bigger and bigger with each page. They also had fun predicting how it would all end!

Another wonderful aspect of The Mitten, and many other Jan Brett books, is that she frames the main picture with mini-illustrations of what else is going on simultaneously. If the bear is coming next, we’ll see the foreshadowing of the bear in pictures on the page before. It's fun to go back after reading the book and see the sub-story that was happening alongside the main story. Great for re-reading again and again during the chilly winter months!

P.S. I know this story is retold by a few different authors. Do you know any other versions of The Mitten that you think are worth a read?