Tuesday Storytime: Fall Weather

We've had yet another weekend of miserable wet weather here, and although I know we need the rain, the combination of dreary drizzly dark days with the sudden arrival of Daylight Savings Time has made me acutely aware that we're solidly into fall.

Fall Leaves
Loretta Holland, illustrated by Elly MacKay
ISBN: 9780544106642
Beautiful (if wordy) nonfiction about the progression of the season via natural environment changes.

This was a bit of a gamble - it's nonfiction and the content text is very small (so hard for a storyteller to read) and very dense (I admit freely that I did a lot of skipping and eliding of content) - but the illustrations are so beautiful, and the clear and grounded progression of the season was so lovely and so delightful in it's dedication to being totally grounded in science and observable natural phenomenon, that I just felt like I had to.  I really like presenting nonfiction whenever I can, because I feel like it gets unfairly ignored by parents who are intimidated by the nonfiction stacks.  That's a real shame, because even very little kids can enjoy a lot of nonfiction content, and there is a lot of that content being created for even the youngest audiences.  Anyway, it's absolutely stunningly beautiful to look at, and the book itself is a delight.  I think it would be a lot better as a one-on-one lapsit book.

 
When Autumn Falls
Kelli Nidey, illustrated by Susan Swan
ISBN: 0807504912
Dimensional collage illustrations with minimal text emphasizing the "fall" in the season.

This is a cute little read, and it's a staple this time of year because it is so short and cute.  We set off through an idealized small town in fall with short direct text: "Leaves on the trees fall..."  "The temperature falls..."  "Ripe apples" and "football players" also.  We learn that "sunlight falls through the almost-bare trees" and "days fall shorter" as we end the day and the book with "We call it fall."


Leaf Man
Lois Ehlert
ISBN: 0152053042
Ehlert's signature bold colors and outlines are interpreted here through collages of fall leaves.

A lyrical story of fall told through the creation of a Leaf Man who blows away in the wind and the reader is asked to imagine where he goes and what he sees on his autumn journey.  The journey imagines gardens and crops, farm animals and flying geese, migrating butterflies and swarming fish in rivers, but all of the illustrations are created entirely through images of various leaves.  It is beautiful and somewhat haunting.  The Leaf Man himself is re-created at the end with a prompt to find your own real Leaf Man out in nature.