I Begin with Spring: The Life and Seasons of Henry David Thoreau

Horn Book Starred Review: An excellent introduction to Thoreau and the turbulent times in which he lived.

School Library Journal Starred Review: An engaging and inspiring biographical title for budding scientists, artists, and environmentalists.

Kirkus starred review: A marvelous life survey of a perennially relevant historical figure.

One of Kirkus' Most Anticipated Children's Book of 2022

"A must read." - Elizabeth Bird, A Fuse 8 Production

Formatted like a nature notebook, this exploration of seasonal changes in Thoreau’s day is also a visual story of his life and times and a gentle introduction to climate change.

I Begin with Spring weaves natural history around Thoreau’s life and times in a richly illustrated field notebook format that can be opened anywhere and invites browsing on every page. Beginning each season with quotes from Thoreau’s schoolboy essay about the changing seasons, Early Bloomer follows him through the fields and woods of Concord, the joys and challenges of growing up, his experiment with simple living on Walden Pond, and his participation in the abolition movement, self-reliance, science, and literature.

The book’s two organizing themes―the chronology of Thoreau’s life and the seasonal cycle beginning with spring―interact seamlessly on every spread, suggesting the correspondence of human seasons with nature’s. Thoreau’s annual records of blooms, bird migrations, and other natural events scroll in a timeline across the page bottoms, and the backmatter includes a summary of how those dates have changed from his day to ours and what that tells us about the science of phenology and climate change.

Megan Baratta’s watercolors are augmented with historical images and reproductions of Thoreau’s own sketches to create a high-interest visual experience. The book includes a foreword from Thoreau scholar Jeffrey Cramer, Curator of Collections for the Walden Woods Project.

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Julie Dunlap is a children’s book writer whose books have earned a Junior Library Guild Selection, a Boston Globe Pick of the Lists, a Teachers’ Choice from Learner Magazine, a Parents’ Choice Award, and an honorable mention for children’s books from the National Association for Humane and Environmental Education. Her children’s books include Louisa May and Mr. Thoreau’s Flute (Dial Books for Young Readers); Parks for the People: The Life of Frederick Law Olmsted; Extraordinary Horseshoe Crabs; and Coyotes and Bats (written under her pseudonym, Julia Vogel). She has also co-edited two anthologies for adult readers, Companions in Wonder: Children and Adults Exploring Nature Together (MIT Press) and Coming of Age at the End of Nature (Trinity University Press) and writes for environmental education organizations such as Interfaith Oceans and the Audubon Naturalist Society. She earned a PhD in social ecology from Yale University and teaches undergraduates about wildlife ecology and sustainability at the University of Maryland University College.

 

Megan Elizabeth Baratta is a children's book illustrator and winner of the School Library Journal's inaugural 2022 Endies Award for Best Map. She lives in central New York with her husband, daughter, and three cats. She loves rendering scenes of ordinary life and showing their quiet beauty. Her books include Most Days, I Begin With Spring, and The Secret Stream.