About the Holiday

National Be On-Purpose Month emphasizes the importance of reflecting on whether your current actions are aligning with your actual personal and professional aspirations. In today’s busy and noisy world, it can be easy to veer from the real purpose for your life. Today’s holiday encourages those wanting to make a change or enhance their life to reflect on what they really want and begin planning how to make it happen. The beginning of the new year is a perfect time to take stock, put the breaks on autopilot living, and make your goals a reality. You might even want to look to the intentionality of nature as poetically revealed in today’s book for inspiration!  

Counting Winter

Written by Nancy White Carlstrom | Illustrated by Claudia McGehee

In very northernly climes—like Alaska, where this book is set—winter is serious business. It also can be mysterious, beautiful, graceful, noisy, quiet, and fun! Animals and people who make their home in such regions and bravely face the elements are captured in their own unique ways through Nancy White Carlstrom’s lovely poetic verses that also invite readers to count from one to twelve.

Image copyright Claudia McGehee, 2024, text copyright Nancy White Carlstrom, 2024. Courtesy of Eerdmans Children’s Books.

Through Carlstrom’s evocative language, kids meet red squirrels, tiny voles, freewheeling sled dogs, and a flurry of birds, among other animals, that “feast,” “skitter,” “rush through the trees / like wind whipping,” and “hoot,” “hammer,” and “flit” as they interact with Winter—a character in its own right that is tracked, named, tamed, and fed on its way to “meeting spring” as children “slip and slide / on melting ice.”

Carlstrom’s deftly formatted poems are riveting, too, for their portraits of these animals—sometimes majestic, sometimes stealthy, and sometimes seemingly too fragile to survive—that with heart and skill not only do survive, but thrive in this most distinctive season. Each lyrical verse flows with assonance and consonance and once or twice a clever rhyme, making them a joy to read aloud. Children will love Carlstrom’s vocabulary and the opportunity to learn here and there small facts, such as the idea of “forty below” temperatures, squirrels’ habit of building middens with pinecones, and how voles spend their winter. 

Image copyright Claudia McGehee, 2024, text copyright Nancy White Carlstrom, 2024. Courtesy of Eerdmans Children’s Books.

Claudia McGehee’s astounding scratchboard and watercolor illustrations bring these animals and the environment to life with their textured and intricate designs. Every page is a sensory-engaging showstopper. Readers can almost feel the cold, brittle air and sense the depth and weight of the snow as a fox stalks a well-hidden rabbit. Three snowshoe hares bound with unbridled energy as geometric and delicately floral snowflakes fall. Kids will be both awed and charmed by the seven musk oxen that greet them as a shaggy, sturdy wall and be nearly able to hear the clammer and feel the whoosh of the eight sled dogs racing by, their tongues out, tasting the stirred up snow.

McGehee’s stunning designs challenge kids to find the full number of animals on each spread, while making it neither too easy nor too hard for young readers of any age. In several spreads, McGehee offers the promise of the spring to come by including glimpses of what lies below the blanket of snow: seeds, grasses, and roots all await warmer weather, and by the time readers join the twelve children at the skating pond, tender green shoots appear on some trees and the crocus is blooming. 

Image copyright Claudia McGehee, 2024, text copyright Nancy White Carlstrom, 2024. Courtesy of Eerdmans Children’s Books.

Back matter includes an illustrated Animal Profiles page that reveals interesting tidbits about the animals featured in the text and would be a terrific jumping off point for nature lovers, teachers, homeschoolers and other educators, and librarians looking for lesson or activity ideas. In an Author’s Note, Nancy White Carlstrom talks about her 19 years living in Alaska and the inspiration for this book. In her Illustrator’s Note, Claudia McGehee discusses the research she did as well as the intricate process of using a scratchboard and watercolors to create the art for Counting Winter.

Counting Winter is sure to be a repeat favorite the whole family will love cozying up with during winter—or even in the throes of summer when a little cool (or cold!) air sounds refreshing—and is highly recommended for home bookshelves. The book is a must for classrooms, school libraries

Ages 4 – 8

Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, 2024 | ISBN 978-0802855701

About the Author

Nancy White Carlstrom has written over sixty books for children, including Before You Were Born (Eerdmans), Mama, Will It Snow Tonight? (Boyds Mills Press), and the bestselling Jesse Bear series (Scholastic). Counting Winter was shaped by the nineteen years Nancy and her family called Alaska home. She currently lives in the Seattle area and enjoys seeing Alaskan wildlife—and her grandchildren—on trips back to the state. Visit her website at nancywhitecarlstrom.com.

About the Illustrator

Claudia McGehee is the illustrator and sometimes author of many picture books, including Begin with a Bee, Creekfinding (both University of Minnesota Press), and My Wilderness (Little Bigfoot). In starred reviews from Kirkus and School Library Journal, Claudia’s scratchboard illustrations have been praised as “meticulous” and “striking.” Raised in the Pacific Northwest, Claudia now lives in Iowa City, Iowa. Visit her website at claudia-mcgehee.com or follow her on Instagram @claudia.mcgehee.

National Be On-Purpose Month Activity

Polar Bear Scarf or Banner

Polar bears aren’t cold in the winter—and neither should you be! Here are directions and printable templates for making a cute scarf to keep you warm, or—if you’d rather—a banner to warm up your room.

Supplies

• Printable Polar Bear and Igloo Template
• 1 Strip of blue fleece 4 ½ feet long x 7 inches wide for the scarf
• 1 Piece of blue scrapbooking paper for a banner
• Pieces of white, black, blue, and purple (or other color) fleece or heavy stock paper to make the polar bear, igloo, snowflakes, and ice floes.
• String or twine for banner
• Scissors
• Fabric or paper glue

Directions for Scarf

To make the fringe at each end of the scarf

1. Make 7 cuts about 4 inches long
2. Tie a knot at the top of each fringe section

To make the pieces for the scarf or banner

1. Trace the polar bear and igloo sections onto white fleece and cut out
2. Trace the two ice floes onto blue fleece and cut out
3. Trace the door of the igloo onto blue fleece and cut out
4. Trace the polar bear’s scarf onto purple (or other color) fleece and cut out
5. Cut out circles for snowflakes
6. Cut out a small circle from black fleece for the Polar Bear’s nose

On one end of the scarf

1. Glue the smaller ice floe on one end of the scarf
2. Tie the bear’s scarf around its neck before gluing the bear to the scarf
3. Glue the polar bear onto the scarf with its feet on the ice floe
4. Glue on the polar bear’s nose
5. Make a small dot for the polar bear’s eye with a marker
6. Glue snowflakes above polar bear

On the other end of the scarf

1. Glue the bigger ice floe to the scarf
2. Glue the three sections of the large igloo to the scarf, leaving a little space between sections
3. Glue the small white door of the igloo on top of the last two igloo sections
4. Glue the small blue door onto the white door
5. Glue snowflakes above the igloo

Directions for Banner

1. Cut a point at the bottom of your banner
2. Trace the pieces of the polar bear and igloo from the printable template onto heavy stock paper
3. Follow the directions above to glue the pieces of the polar bear and igloo to your banner
4. Attach string or twine to back of banner to make a hanger

You can purchase Counting Winter at these booksellers

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Bookshop (to support your local independent bookstore)

Picture Book Review