{"id":9686,"date":"2012-10-31T21:47:13","date_gmt":"2012-11-01T01:47:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=9686"},"modified":"2021-09-11T13:26:34","modified_gmt":"2021-09-11T17:26:34","slug":"review-of-and-then-its-spring-by-julie-fogliano-and-erin-e-stead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=9686","title":{"rendered":"Review of And Then It’s Spring, by Julie Fogliano and Erin E. Stead"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>And Then It’s Spring<\/em><\/p>\n

written by Julie Fogliano
\nillustrated by Erin E. Stead<\/p>\n

A Neal Porter Book, Roaring Brook Press, 2012. 32 pages.<\/p>\n

As you would expect from Caldecott-winning illustrator Erin Stead, this book is beautiful. This isn’t so much a book for storytime (though it would work for that if the kids could sit up close to see the pictures and the details) as it is a meditative book for sitting with a child in your lap and looking slowly and enjoying the pictures.<\/p>\n

This is a book about time passing, specifically the time when winter is finishing up, and you’re waiting for Spring. It’s not particularly a book for southern California (where I grew up), but it’s lovely for more northern climes.<\/p>\n

First you have brown,
\nall around you have brown.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The bundled up boy and dog and turtle (even the turtle has a stocking cap at first!) plant some seeds. They wait and wait. They shed some wraps. It’s amazing how many different scenes Erin Stead makes out of that premise. And the poetry of the lines has its own music.<\/p>\n

One page I especially like is:<\/p>\n

or maybe it was the bears and all that stomping,
\nbecause bears can’t read signs
\nthat say things like
\n“please do not stomp here —
\nthere are seeds
\nand they are trying.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On that page, three bears are in among the plantings, and one bear is scratching himself with the described sign.<\/p>\n

On another page, we see creatures that have made tunnels inside the earth as we look at a cross-section, with the boy and a rabbit with their ear to the ground and the dog and the turtle looking at a creature coming out of a tunnel.<\/p>\n

and the brown,
\nstill brown,
\nhas a greenish hum
\nthat you can only hear
\nif you put your ear to the ground
\nand close your eyes”<\/p>\n

But don’t worry! Spring does come.<\/p>\n

but the brown isn’t around
\nand now you have green,
\nall around
\nyou have
\ngreen.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This book has grown on me. The first time I read it, I leafed through it too quickly. This is a book for poring over, for reading again and again, and for sharing with a child.<\/p>\n

Buy from Amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Find this review on Sonderbooks<\/a> at: www.sonderbooks.com\/Picture_Books\/and_then_its_spring.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.<\/p>\n

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.<\/p>\n

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.<\/p>\n

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