When a little boy’s mother sits down to read to him, he chooses his favorite book. “The book was about a big black bear who went to sleep for the winter. 'Do bears really sleep all winter long?’ asked the boy. 'Yes,’ his mother said. 'They hibernate.’ The boy turned the page.” Kate Banks’s meta story about the experience of reading a picture book is a thoughtful, intriguing offering full of quiet drama. “Snowflakes began to fall across the pages of the book. The snow sat snugly in the boughs of the trees. The boy could almost feel it. 'Snow is cold,’ he said.” Banks’s beautifully composed narrative, with its vivid language and wonderful pacing, captures the comforting, enriching experience of sharing a story. Georg Hallensleben’s warm, deeply hued illustrations depict the story of the boy and the story of the bear, and how the two can become seamless in the mind of a child. (Ages 3–6)