I love quiet, beautiful picture books. This was definitely one of those. ( )

I was given the opportunity to hear the author/illustrator, Kenard Pak, read and present this book via Read Aloud Revival (Sarah Mackenzie). My kids (5yo & 3yo) really enjoyed this book. They loved the vibrant illustrations, the fun conversational way that the text flows, and they really enjoyed hearing about Mr. Park’s creative process. The overall experience helped me teach my kids about the seasons, how important autumn is, and even chat about how people write and create books. We’ve checked a few other books out of the library that were also illustrated by Mr. Pak and we can’t wait to dig in.

My kids recommend this book (and I agree)! ( )

Rich watercolor illustrations and thoughtful text provide countless details of the changing season. A young girl and her dog walk through their community noticing and greeting the changes in landscape, animals, weather, and daylight.

diverse picture book (changing seasons, outdoors/nature; preschoolers ages 4 )
* Prominently features diverse characters - a dark-skinned, straight-black haired child walking through various scenes (woods, countryside, city) and encounters friendly people of various skin colors.
* might work for preschoolers/kindergarten storytime - the story is longer and quieter, so it'd have to be a group accustomed to sitting through longer stories (or else a quiet one-on-one reading), but the illustrations are lush and the text has a quiet, poetic cadence to it. ( )

A young girl greets the world around her - the morning, the trees, the animals, the wind, and so on - in this lovely picture-book examination of the turning of the seasons. Each entity returns the girl's greeting, describing how they are changing or what they are doing in preparation for the coming of autumn. After a day spent walking around, the girl goes home and goes to sleep, awakening the next day to a world transformed...

Given my great love of autumn - it is my favorite season of the year! - and my appreciation for the beauty of its cover, I picked up Goodbye Summer, Hello Autumn with a pleasing sense of anticipation. Although the artwork, done in watercolor and pencil, and then enhanced digitally, more than lived up to my expectations, unfortunately I found the text a bit pedestrian. When well done, this kind of "child interacts with the wide, wide world" type of story can be very appealing, but Kenard Pak's text here just felt rather flat. Tastes vary of course, so other readers might react differently. For my part, I enjoyed the book enough to track down the sequel, Goodbye Autumn, Hello Winter, but it is primarily for its lovely artwork that I would recommend it. ( )