Cozy Winter Reads for Middle Grades

Nine-year-old Sumac Lottery considers it her job to make sure none of the Lottery celebrations are forgotten, especially now at Christmas time, and in her large, gay, and multiethnic family there are a lot of occasions for celebration in the house they all call Camelottery--but when a terrible ice storm hits Toronto, one of her dads, and her favorite brother cannot make it home from India, and it becomes increasingly difficult to hang on to the holiday...

Orphan Elizabeth Somers's malevolent aunt Purdy and uncle Burlap ship her off to the ominous Winterhouse hotel, owned by the peculiar Norbridge Falls. Upon arrival, Elizabeth quickly discovers that Winterhouse has many charms - most notably its massive library. It's not long before she locates a magical book of puzzles that will unlock a mystery involving Norbridge and his sinister family. But as she uncovers the hotel's secrets, Elizabeth starts...

Mila lives with her sisters, Pipa and Sanna, her brother Oskar, and their sled dogs in the forest where winter has held sway for five years, ever since their father disappeared; but now a strange scary man, flanked by twelve young boys, seems to have bewitched Oskar and taken him away--and Mila, convinced her brother is in danger, leads her sisters in a desperate journey across the frozen wild-lands to find their brother, and perhaps a way past an...

It's wintertime at Greenglass House. The creaky smuggler's inn is always quiet during this season, and twelve-year-old Milo, the innkeepers' adopted son, plans to spend his holidays relaxing. But on the first icy night of vacation, out of nowhere, the guest bell rings. Then rings again. And again. Soon Milo's home is bursting with odd, secretive guests, each one bearing a strange story that is somehow connected to the rambling old house. As objects...

The Earth is in the grip of a new Ice Age, and when twelve-year-old Eleanor's scientist mother disappears in the Arctic, Eleanor sets off on a dangerous journey to find her--and uncovers a mystery, a crime, and evidence that Earth has been visited by extraterrestrials.

A dog with unusual communication talents loses his poet owner before rescuing two children trapped in a snowstorm and leading them to the poet's cabin, where the children explore the memories that the poet has left behind.

A silent comic that tells the story of a family of foxes whose life is transformed by the arrival of a strange visitor during a harsh winter.

On a cold winter day in Chicago, Early's father disappeared, and now she, her mother and her brother have been forced to flee their apartment and join the ranks of the homeless--and it is up to Early to hold her family together and solve the mystery surrounding her father.

Twelve-year-old Ben's unexpected success outside the classroom causes the CIA to activate him for a mission to become friends with Jessica Shang, daughter of a suspected Chinese crime boss.