A charming installment in the series of seasons by Kenard Pak. Pak's illustrations are bright and evocative. The prose focuses not simply on an individual season, but on the transition between seasons. The narrative pattern is very simple and repetitve, but highlights all there is to observe outdoors.

This is a fun story that talks about the changes that happen in the environment when the seasons are changing. ( )

Author/illustrator Kenard Pak returns with this third picture-book devoted to the changing seasons, following upon his Goodbye Summer, Hello Autumn and Goodbye Autumn, Hello Winter. Here a young boy - no doubt the younger brother from the previous title - walks around his rural home one winter night, saying hello to everything from the snow to the frozen pond. He is greeted in return, and each natural phenomenon or object explains what they are doing. Returning home, the boy goes to bed and wakes up to find a world thawing out, and moving into spring...

Much as I did with the previous two books, I felt that the artwork in Goodbye Winter, Hello Spring was significantly stronger than the text, which often felt more like a list than a narrative. The call and response structure can work very well in a picture-book, when done right, but I always kind Pak's use of it rather awkward. I can't help but feel that these books would work better as wordless titles, given the fact that everything the rather stilted text conveys is also communicated through the artwork. Tastes vary, of course, so picture-book readers looking for titles about seasonal changes might want to take a look. It is to them, and to fans of Kenard Pak's artwork, that I would recommend this one. ( )

Snow and ice gives way to greenery in another beautiful addition to this seasonal series (Goodbye Summer, Hello Autumn; Goodbye Autumn, Hello Winter).

*
Re-read March 2022 ( )