GREETINGS!
by Raven Howell , illustrated by Ann Pilicer
Two siblings enjoy a year of seasons in this poetic concept book full of detailed digital paintings.
“Goodbye, winter / Hello, spring!” A brown-haired sister and her spectacled younger brother, both nature lovers, say goodbye to each season as they move into the next one. On the spread that features the farewell to winter, the left-hand page depicts the two siblings and their dog bundled against the snow, watching a sleeping nest of bunnies. On the facing page, they observe three bears greeting spring. Howell’s (My Community, 2018, etc.) inventive rhymes correspond with the seasons, with a few phrases for each. Various familiar activities—eating ice cream, going to the beach, trick-or-treating, and sledding, among them—help highlight each season. The white siblings encounter plenty of human friends with varying skin tones as well as a number of animals: geese, robins, otters, turtles, and more. Some of the creatures are very realistic in Pilicer’s (Morten and Gordon, 2017, etc.) illustrations while others have cartoonish features to make them look more human. The innovative rhymes and the clear flow of one period into the next make the concept of seasonal change easy for young readers to grasp.
With action-packed illustrations and a repeating refrain, this nature tale is sure to become a favorite read-aloud in preschool classrooms.