Recommended children's booklists sorted by age or topic

Topic: Frozen Worlds

The Adventure Club: Polar Bear Patrol

Chapter book

Do you like exploring, animals and adventure? Then join The Adventure Club! A new illustrated series for younger readers about animals and adventure from much-loved author Jess Butterworth – writer of classic adventure stories in vibrantly described settings.

It’s time for the third Adventure Club trip, and this time Tilly and the Adventure Club are off to the Arctic circle in search of polar bears! There, they journey across the ice on sleighs pulled by huskies, camp in tents, and watch the northern lights, braving sub-zero temperatures.

But on a boat trip, disaster strikes! The team find a narwhal caught in a fishing net. It’s a race against time to free the narwhal. Will they succeed? And will the Adventure Club team spot a single polar bear before they have to leave?

Join the Adventure Club with Tilly to find out!

The Emperor’s Egg

Jane Chapman & Martin Jenkins

Picturebook

An award-winning picture book about the Emperor penguin’s parenting.

The Emperor penguin is the only large animal to remain on the Antarctic mainland throughout its bitterly inhospitable winter. Once the female has laid her egg, she heads back to the sea, leaving the male to incubate it. He then spends two months standing on the freezing cold ice with the egg on his feet! This is his story.

The Lights that Dance in the Night

Yuval Zommer

Picturebook

For story times on starry nights with the blackest skies – comfort and warmth will be readily found in Yuval Zommer’s Northern Lights inspired picture book The Lights that Dance in the Night. Completing Yuval’s ‘winter trilogy’, this is a lyrical celebration of the Northern Lights. From tiny specs of dust to gleaming rays in the dark, the Northern Lights travel across the Arctic, uniting every creature in a celebration that reverberates through land and sea. Illustrated in Yuval Zommer’s compelling style, this is a dreamy and gentle story poem that is perfect for bedtime with little ones or cosy classroom story sessions inspiring children to want to seek out the wonders of the sky at night.

A Dot in the Snow

Corrinne Averiss & Fiona Woodcock

Picturebook

A little polar bear, Miki, wanders away while his mother is diving for fish. He sees a dot in the snow and rushes towards it. Readers discover that the dot is a little girl. But Miki has never seen a human before and the little girl has never seen a polar bear. They discover more about each other as they play in the snow but then the perils of the polar landscape impel Miki to take the little girl home before undertaking the long journey to find his own mother. Although one is a polar bear and one is a little girl, Miki and Dot share a common experience: they are both separated from their mothers when they meet. Their bond of friendship gives them the strength to support each other during the course of a day that will last with them both forever. This is a moving and poignant story set in a changing and challenging polar landscape, perfect for the Christmas season. It wraps up important themes about empathy, kindness, and courage. The story is both simply told and affecting. The gorgeous snowscapes, full of real atmosphere, are created with printmaking techniques by debut illustrator Fiona Woodcock.

Frozen Worlds Topic

The Best Children’s Books About Frozen Worlds

Brrr! Our recommended children’s books feature stories that will whisk you away to icy landscapes and frozen worlds. Look out for exciting polar expeditions, adventures of ice queens and curious penguins…

If you are looking for stories set in polar regions, we’ve found the best children’s books for this topic. Dive into picturebooks about arctic explorers like Ernest Shackleton or The Great Explorer or heartwarming stories of animals surviving in polar habitats like The Emperor’s Egg or The Rainbow Bear. Our Review Panel has selected top educational books about the science and ecology of frozen worlds, like the large-format stunning non-fiction book Iceberg or Nicola Davies’ Emperor of the Ice.

You’ll also find chapter books featuring exciting adventure stories of friendship and survival in extreme conditions, like The Polar Bear Explorer’s Club or one of our very favourites, The Last Bear.

Our list of books will take your readers on a journey to the Arctic, Antarctic and imaginary frozen worlds too. Whether it’s penguins and polar bears or snow and ice, chart a new expedition into these recommended stories.

The Polar Bear Explorers’ Club

Alex Bell & Tomislav Tomic

Chapter book

This new adventure story is a great choice for upper KS2. After fighting hard to gain her place on an expedition, young Stella and her explorer friends embark upon an exciting adventure through vast Icelands. A wonderful mixture of fantasy and adventure, the narrative weaves its way through dangerous and magical encounters with snow queens, unicorns, frost fairies and wolf-whisperers.

The Great Explorer

Chris Judge

Picturebook

This story follows a young boy who sets about to find his father, an explorer who appears to have gone missing in the North Pole. The boy has to prepare himself for the Arctic terrain by sourcing a map and packing his rucksack with all the things he thinks he might need. A fun and brightly illustrated picture book popular with KS1.

The Rainbow Bear

Michael Foreman & Michael Morpurgo

Picturebook

This longer picturebook is the story of a polar bear who dreams of exchanging his snowy white coat for new fur that is as colourful as the rainbow he sees in the sky one day. The bear’s conspicuous new appearance leads him to be captured and exhibited in a zoo.

This engaging and thought-provoking story by master storyteller Michael Morpurgo is coupled with beautiful illustrations, making it one of our top choices for storytime in Year 2 and the surrounding year groups.

Shackleton’s Journey

William Grill

Graphic novel

This is a brilliantly visual re-telling of Ernest Shackleton’s adventures from pole to pole, published to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Shackleton’s historic expedition.

This engaging text is filled with diagrams, maps, infographics and fascinating facts that will both delight readers and transport them through an imaginary exploration of frozen worlds.

We recommend Shackleton’s Journey as a good non-fiction text to use for engaging reluctant readers in KS2. There is also an accompanying activity book available from Amazon.

The Last Polar Bears

Harry Horse

Chapter book

In this story Grandfather, together with his canine companion Roo, sets off on an Arctic expedition to find the last polar bears. The story is told through a series of letters from Grandfather to a grandchild, through which Grandfather gives a first hand account of the highs and lows of his exciting journey. We like the way in which this book balances an appropriate level of humour at Grandfather’s amusing escapades along with an underlying concern for the melting ice caps and the survival of creatures living in polar regions.

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