What Comes in Spring?

A mother explains to her daughter how she grew inside her as the seasons changed, bringing great happiness to Mama and Daddy both at her birth and now

PreSchool-Grade 2-- When a little girl asks `` `Mama, what comes in spring?' '' her mother explains about flowers, leaves, robins , and meeting her future husband. The mother's description of summer includes activities they do together in the warm weather; it was also when she got married. Fall bring leaves, going to school, and the time `` `. . .you started to grow inside of me.' '' Winter is next with cold, snowsuits, tracks in the snow, and when `` `. . .you grew big inside of me.' '' Spring comes again with robins, leaves, and the child's birth. This is a gentle blend of a mother answering her daughter's questions about the seasons while personalizing them to her own development and birth. There is a simplicity in the answers as if the two have been through this game of security before. The colorful yet soft pastels bring a simple elegance to the story, blending the mother with a young child and in the stages of waiting before the baby. Security, seasons, and birth all are handled beautifully in this story that begs to be read, reread, and personalized for similar family stories. --Nancy A. Gifford, Schenectady County Public Library, NY
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A gracefully poetic conversation between a mother and daughter links the cycling of the seasons to the child's own birth. In spring come ``leaves on trees and robins [and] The first time I ever saw your daddy.'' ``Where was I?'' ``You weren't born yet.'' ``Mama, what comes next?'' The summer's wedding, the baby beginning ``to grow inside of me'' in autumn, the ``crisp, clean air'' of winter when ``our voices sound loud in the quiet''--all are recalled in loving dialogue, coming at last to the joy of birth in the spring. In Young's glowing impressionistic pastels, the family is Oriental; his palette here is bright yet tender, the point of view sometimes intimately close, like that of a child secure in her parents' welcome. A lovely first book, with a text worthy of its beautiful setting. (Picture book. 3-6) -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.