Firsts and Lasts: The ­Changing Seasons

PreS-K–This is a book about transitions, removed from the calendar and attached to the way children move through the years. The story opens with muted cut-paper collage, in the soft colors of late March before spring bursts out, providing an unsparing look at the “lasts” of winter’s grip: snow days, melting and muddy drifts, but also the “first glimpse” of green sprouts pushing up, and as spring arrives, the first game of catch, and the first flowers. Here comes summer, and it’s the “last” of the days for flannel sleepwear, and a personal changing season: the last time the “we” who narrates uses training wheels to cycle. There is bliss with each turn of the page, as the pastel hues of spring give way to a summer riot of deeper colors; with fall, the pages turn orange and gold for a last trip to the ice cream stand. One observation per page, and changing perspectives visually and philosophically, give a dynamism to the primitive but relatable forms. The family reads as white, the setting perhaps New England.