This is a picture book hall-of-famer for good reason. Jan Brett's illustrations are absolutely gorgeous—the kind of book you can read fifty times and still notice new details. The story is simple but charming: a boy loses his white mitten in the snow, and one by one, woodland animals crawl inside to stay warm, each one bigger than the last, until a bear squeezes in and a tiny mouse causes a sneeze-explosion.

It's wholesome without being saccharine, funny without being silly, and the Ukrainian folk art details give it cultural richness. The 4.8 Amazon rating and decades of staying power speak volumes.

That said, this is firmly in the 'cozy winter storytime' category. If your kid is 8+ and not into gentle, traditional picture books, they'll roll their eyes. But for the preschool and early elementary crowd? It's a keeper. The kind of book that becomes a winter tradition, gets requested over and over, and holds up beautifully to repeated readings.