December usually brings cold days, crisp air, freezing lakes, animal tracks, and snow shoveling. This month always brings the longest nights and the winter solstice, when the seasonal – at first imperceptible – shift to light begins.

With limited garden tasks outdoors, indoor winter tasks include entering data, compiling summaries, writing, developing and attending talks and workshops, research, reading, and reflecting. Continuing a long tradition of sharing winter reading suggestions, here are books that reveal and explore plants, animals, community, place, and more. A common theme of learning in the garden (and other, especially outdoor, spaces) is how much is “hidden in plain sight.” Seeing even a small part of the world in a new way can generate questions and exploration, wonder and understanding, and renew care and active stewardship for the natural world.

Garden insects are often small and fleeting. While we know that beneficial insects are critically important in ecosystems, we may observe only one stage of their life cycles and entirely miss seeing other stages or species. For example, at the Arboretum, we photographed and monitored bumble bees for several years before we found all fourteen species on our current list. Will we find more? We have much more to discover about pollinator and insect groups.

For gardeners fostering pollinators and looking for an accessible resource, The Pollinator Victory Garden by Kim Eierman provides the basics and helpful details. She covers pollinator needs (nutrition and habitat), pollinator groups, and how to plan, plant, and manage healthy habitats. The text is accessible and direct along with many photos of plants, pollinators, and gardens. I could see a community group or high school service group using this book to guide a community or school garden project. Her checklists and tips are a concise way to continue creating gardens where we can understand and share discoveries about garden life. As with any book that covers a wide geographic range, gardeners will need to tailor plant lists to their own locale and be aware that not all pollinators described will be present in all regions.

In 2025, the Arboretum hosted researcher, naturalist, author, and former Arb ranger Andrew Hipp sharing his new book, Oak Origins: From Acorns to Species and the Tree of Life. While oaks are familiar keystone species in Wisconsin woodlands, savannas, and gardens, this book reveals fascinating details about reproduction, populations, systematics, and evolutionary history. Chapters about flowers, acorns, variation, and especially hybridization address many gardeners’ questions. I appreciated the imagery Hipp develops to understand relatedness and change over millennia. His description of oak communities reveals hidden connections and networks, and he brings us up to date on research and new insights in oak genomics. An extensive appendix includes chapter notes and literature cited.

In Loving Orphaned Space: The Art and Science of Belonging to Earth, geographer, research scientist, and former Arboretum editor (of the journal Ecological Restoration), Mrill Ingram presents context and case studies to develop thought and understanding of “orphaned space.” These are areas that are interstitial, perhaps related to past or present infrastructure, forgotten, taken for granted, or devalued, and are largely unseen (unacknowledged). Yet they result from decisions, policy, and practices in the absence of community-driven negotiation, stewardship, and novel use. This is a small but complex book. Ingram offers three conditions for imbuing orphaned spaces with significance, care, and community life: reject the void, practice “diplomacy,” and cultivate a collective imagination. In her examples, artists are key to both illuminating orphaned space and finding a collective path forward. Community voice and direction guide these efforts, and scientific expertise informs them. Ingram will share her book at the Friends of the Arboretum Luncheon Lecture on January 20, 2026.

While we know that experiences in nature are beneficial to human well-being, since the mid-1900s there has been an almost steady decline in experiencing nature directly and through language and culture. Without nature experiences and nature-related words, learning from generation to generation is limited or absent. What happens when nature, which all organisms depend on, is no longer “in plain sight?” Can books help turn that trend around? The following picture book recommendations are for young readers and those who read to them.

Three of these books are informational with room for playful engagement. Tuck me in!, by Nathan W. Pyle, features the moon and two arguing beaches, illustrated on bold panels. Compromise and gravitational pull both figure into the story’s resolution. Fish Everywhere, by Britta Teckentrup, is a large-format picture book for older readers. Each page has a theme (freshwater fish, what is a fish? fish feeding) with brief entries amid many illustrations – and much to explore. Hush Hush, Forest, by Mary Casanova with woodcuts by Nick Wroblewski, is a simple bedtime story depicting fall changing to winter outside the window, describing different animals’ activity as cold weather sets in.

These next three books relate to natural phenomena through the child’s experience. Let’s go outside!, by Ben Leruill and Marina Ruiz, is a series of adventures illustrated in watercolors. On every spread, children are out exploring, feeling, interacting with each other and nature. The reader will need many nature words to discover little creatures and details in the paintings. The book closes with questions and ideas for children’s own outdoor adventures. Some Days I’m the Wind, by Rebecca Levington and illustrated by Dinara Mirtalipova, makes a connection between natural features (wind, sun, trees, snow, moon) and the protagonist’s changing emotions. Nature and human nature express a wide range in these lively pictures. We All Play, by Julie Flett, is another bedtime book. Flett (a Cree-Metis author) conveys children’s kinship with animals significant in Cree culture, playing and, finally, sleeping.

The books introduced above, and many more, are available at the Arboretum bookstore.

While gardens are quiet and the solstice slowly brings light from darkness once again, let’s read!

– Susan Carpenter, native plant garden curator