This book isn't a read-aloud selection, per se. It's more of a coffee table book, or something your kids might pick up and just look at for a few minutes here and there during the inevitable lulls of the day. And it is certainly worth having around for just those moments. Snow Crystals, by Bentley and Humphreys, is a book of the simplest conception. A collection of the snowflake photographs that made W.A. Bentley famous (as Snowflake Bentley), Snow Crystals is essentially just page upon page of close-up photographs of snowflakes. The background is black, the snow is white, and the effect is visually stunning.
There is a small introduction to snow crystals at the front of the book; something which may be of interest to scientists-in-training who have a lot of questions about why snowflakes look the way that they do, but overall, this book is just flake upon flake, in remarkable and wonderful detail. I suspect that the time of the season in which we get the soft, light snow that lends itself to close examination of individual crystals has passed. It's wet slush from here on out, I'd guess. But I'm glad to have discovered this book just the same. It's almost like a field guide to snow flakes, and it will no doubt be useful on quiet winter afternoons to come.