Margaret Hall’s simple science book about Hibernation is a fine introduction on the subject for young children. Though it isn’t all that exciting or engaging, it is a very straightforward explanation of the process that features a wide variety of animals who hibernate, including some very adorable photos that children who love animals will be sure to love.

The book is one in the Patterns in Nature series, and is intended to help children ages four and up discover the different patterns and happenings in nature in our world. Bold chapter headings present the information in an easy, accessible way, while the book’s table of contents helps children locate specific sub-topics within the book.

Close-up photos of animals getting ready to hibernate or actually sleeping in their dens are the best part of the book. These images help children to really visualize what it means to hibernate. My daughter and I pretended to be each hibernating animal as we read about it, and we slowed our breathing down as much as we could, laying still for as long as we could—which, for her, wasn’t very long, of course! Still, it really helped her to understand the concept better, since the term hibernate usually makes us think of regular sleeping, when in fact, it’s a very slowed down, almost death-like sleep used to conserve energy and live throughout the winter months.

One of our favorite games subsequently is to look up animals and guess whether or not they hibernate now. Bats, for example, are not an animal that we normally think of as hibernating, since they are so small and sort of remind us of birds, who either migrate or stick around for the winter. But many bats do hibernate, which was fun to learn about.

Also included in this and all of the Patterns in Nature books is a glossary, index, Internet resources, and other recommend books to read to take one’s learning even further. All of these components make the book a good introductory one, but also a good example of how to use a reference material. The text can be used to help teach children how to look up information, to find or cite source material, and how to learn more about a topic of interest. These may not be the most exciting things to learn, of course, but many children might be interested in such things—and most will need to know them someday in order to teach themselves or to work on research projects.