Children’s Books: Five Brilliant Books About Spring

Believe it or not, it’s spring (as I type this there is snow on the ground and the heating is on full blast). Spring is one of our favourite seasons; with the first garden flowers of the year popping up; some blue skies, and the birth of new life. We always like to visit a local farm in spring, helping to feed the orphan lambs is a particular joy. As ever, we like to keep our reading seasonal too, so here are five sensational books about spring we love…

Five Sensational Books About Spring

Spring by Gerda Muller is one of a series of four books without words, which lead the young child through the seasons of the year. Full of fun and active illustrations, this chunky board book shows the joys of playing with lambs, sowing seeds, painting Easter eggs and watching baby birds. It’s the most wonderful book to share with little ones this spring!

Children's Books: Five Sensational Books About Spring

The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle. Join the tiny seed on an adventure as it becomes a giant flower! In autumn, a strong wind blows flower seeds high in the air and carries them far across the land. One by one, many of the seeds are lost. They are burned by the sun, fall into the ocean, or eaten by birds. But some seeds survive the long winter and, come spring, sprout into plants. The delicate plants face new dangers; being trampled by playing children or picked as a gift for a friend. Soon only the tiniest seed remains, growing into a giant flower and, when autumn returns, sending its own seeds into the wind to start the process over again.

Little Baa by Kim Lewis. For me, spring isn’t spring until I’ve seen and preferably snuggled a lamb. This book is perfect for lamb-lovers like me! One spring day, Little Baa jumps, skips and runs in the field. Soon he leaves his friends far behind – and his Ma too; but Little Baa’s Ma misses him and searches for him. Will she ever find her Little Baa?

Animal Seasons: Rabbit’s Spring Adventure by Anita Loughrey. Animal Seasons are a beautifully illustrated series of picture books for young children and emerging readers and they are great for learning a little more about the natural world. In this spring adventure, Rabbit leaves his warren and discovers that the woods are full of new life. There’s so much to discover that poor Rabbit loses his way, but who will help him find his way back home?

A Year in Brambly Hedge by Jill Barklam. When I was a child, I was completely enchanted by the Brambly Hedge stories. I still have my little collection of books today. The mice of Brambly Hedge have many beautifully illustrated adventures throughout the year. They mark the seasons with feasts and festivities and, of course, the mice never miss an opportunity to have a little party. This wonderful collection would make a great gift for any child and it really is a collection to treasure.

If you enjoyed these books about spring, you might also enjoy my five classic books about bears.

Children's Books: Five Sensational Books About Spring

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Autumn’s Best Bits

I love autumn, I mean what’s not to love? Crunchy leaves to kick through, warm fires to cozy up in front of, the autumnal festivals of Halloween and Bonfire night. I love it. It helps of course that my birthday falls at the start of autumn, and the small boy’s falls towards the end, so autumn is quite literally party season for us. I’ve picked some of my favourite pictures taken of us and our adventures during autumn, what were our best bits?

I love this one, my son and his cousin at Bramhall Hall during half term, wrapped up against the chill and having an awful lot of fun.

Autumn

I love the skies in autumn, clear and blue, with fluffy clouds and sunsets where the sky is a thousand shades of orange, pink and red.

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I love this picture of my son blowing out his birthday cake. His birthday party was a very cold day and him and 16 of his friends enjoyed a trip to the miniature railway, braved the cold and were rewarded with lots of cake. It was a lovely day.

Train birthday cake

This was our “pumpkin patch” from Halloween, I love the colours of pumpkin and squash, they’re so cheery.

Halloween Party

This is another one of the boy and his cousin. They were doing some autumn leaf craft with some leaves we’d collected from the park, it’s a reminder of a lovely day and it was a nice, interesting thing to do with the boys.

Autumn Leaf Crafts

Another of my favourite autumn pictures is this memorial bench in our local park, it’s dedicated to a local lacrosse player and is a stunning piece of wood carving. I love the way the small boy is peeking over the bench, it gives it an idea of the scale of the carving too.

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Possibly my favourite picture is this one taken during early autumn, it was still warm enough for shorts and a t-shirt but the leaves were beginning to turn and the evenings had a definite autumnal chill about them. The boy looked and was so happy that day.

Silent sunday

I love each of these pictures for different reasons. If I were to pick one which I felt represented autumn it would be the boys making the leafy tree. We had such a good time collecting the leaves, then making the tree, it’s a real autumnal memory for us all.

My Autumnal Top Ten

I love autumn, it’s my favourite season, or my least favourite season, I’m still undecided. So in the style of a teenage girl doing a pros/cons list on a potential boyfriend, my favourite things about autumn are…

1. Kicking through crunchy leaves on walks
2. Hot chocolate with optional whipped cream and marshmallows
3. Warm snuggles under a blanket
4. Halloween parties
5. Stew and buttery mash
6. Rainy day crafting with the small boy
7. Watching firework displays from the bedroom window
8. Collecting conkers
9. The evening sky in autumn is often incredible
10. Stodgy, happy puddings with lashings of custard.

But I really hate autumn for these reasons…

1. Rain, endless rain
2. The dark
3. It’s cold
4. Slippery leaves on the pavement
5. Falling conker concussion
6. Arguing over putting the heating on
7. The resulting heating bill
8. Diets are hard, like really hard, I want sticky toffee pudding
9. It’s too cold to go out and exercise, I wanna stay under the blanket
10. Stupid fireworks, it’s not November 5th yet

I could go on, but I won’t, that angry nerve in my eye is twitching again. I’m still undecided. Autumn definitely is a love/hate season for me.

Autumn