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Kids can cozy up with two stories about ice and two that star polar bears.

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For kids, reading about snow and ice can be heartwarming, whether they live in Minneapolis or Miami, where the topic seems more exotic. USA TODAY's Bob Minzesheimer, whose own Hudson Valley backyard is covered with snow, recommends four new illustrated books that celebrate cold weather.

Twelve Kinds of Ice
By Ellen Bryan Obed, illustrated by Barbara McClintock
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 64 pages, for readers 6-9
* * * * out of four

Ellen Bryan Obed, who grew up on a farm in Waterville, Maine, has written a lovely little book inspired by a childhood where "first ice" was as eagerly anticipated as the first day of summer vacation. With Barbara McClintock's elegant pen-and-ink drawings, Twelve Kinds of Ice traces a season of family skating, from the first skim of ice so thin it breaks when touched, through "black ice," water shocked still by the cold, through the inevitable season-ending "last ice," which Obed's dad called "punk ice," a harbinger of spring. And for kids who, unlike Obed, never turn their gardens into skating rinks or play pond hockey, there's "dream ice," which is found in anyone's sleep, when you can skate wherever you want. The cold never felt so inviting.

ICE! The Amazing History of the Ice Business
By Laurence Pringle
Calkins Creek, 74 pages, for ages 8-12
* * * ½

Who knew that before electricity, there were refrigerators and a kitchen appliance called the "Coolerator"? Or that "harvesting" ice was big business, subject to "ice famines" that were front-page news? Or that in July 1906, an "ice riot" broke out in Manhattan, where city officials were giving away free 4-pound pieces of ice to the poor? Laurence Pringle, who lives not far from Rockland Lake, N.Y., once famous as the "Icebox of New York City," tells a kid-friendly slice of social and technological history. Aided by an impressive collection of archival photos and advertisements, Pringle has a good eye for side stories. He describes the correspondence between President Washington and Robert Morris, his superintendent of finance, about building a better icehouse, and Josephine Walter, who at 17 secretly broke the men-only rule about working on the ice. The Knickerbocker Ice Company paid her as "Joe Walter."

A Flower in the Snow
By Tracey Corderoy, illustrated by Sophie Allsopp
Sourcebooks, 32 pages, for ages 4-8
* * * ½

In Tracey Corderoy's sweet fable about friendship, a girl named Luna lives in an igloo in an "icy kingdom far away." Her best friend is a big, soft, cuddly polar bear known as Bear. They belong together "like peanut butter and jelly." One day, in Luna's snow-covered garden, a yellow flower pops up, and Bear picks it and gives it to his best friend. But after "the sunshine flower" wilts, Bear leaves the kingdom in search of a replacement, which he cannot find — that is, until he finally returns home and discovers that his best friend knows something about the magic of seeds. Sophie Allsopp's colorful illustrations do wonders with all the shades of white.

Polar Bear Morning
By Lauren Thompson, illustrated by Stephen Savage
Scholastic, 32 pages, for ages 3 and up
* * *

One bright and chilly morning, a polar bear cub emerges from her cozy den in Lauren Thompson's quiet adventure. Before long, she spies a "snowy something," with a "snowy face," "snowy fur" and "snowy paws." It's another young polar bear, and the two new friends are off to romp through the snowy landscape, tumbling down a hill and toward the glinting sea. An entire snowy world is created through Stephen Savage's pastel illustrations that use linocut prints. The friendly supporting cast includes sea gulls, seals, walruses and whales. It's a fitting companion to Thompson and Savage's award-winning 2004 collaboration, Polar Bear Night.

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