Firsts and Lasts: The Changing Seasons

Seasonal rituals come alive in this by turns bittersweet and joyful ode to beginnings and endings.

Each season's traits are captured through snapshots of firsts and lasts in this change-forward chronicle by Schubert and Robin. In cut-paper collage scenes, a pale-skinned cast plays in the melting snow and revels among emerging greenery. Among other things, Schubert suggests, spring embodies "the last time we hear 'Snow day!' " and "the first time we see new grass." Summer, in turn, features the end of shut windows and the start of "june bugs hitting screens," autumn is a time for final ice cream cones and first bowls of soup, and a last winter playground visit is followed by the year's inaugural hot chocolate. Schubert's indicative descriptions combine with Robin's textured portraits for a nostalgic ode focusing on weather in the global north. Ages 4-8. (Mar.)

Copyright 2022 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.

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. VERDICT For any classroom lesson on seasons, this will inspire children to make lists of their own, to note those "lasts" and look forward to more "firsts." A lovely work.--Kimberly Olson Fakih

Copyright 2022 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Although seasons books abound, Schubert and Robin's tacit emphasis on transitions makes this an especially thoughtful offering that will have readers chiming in with their own rosters of rituals that make the year go 'round.
—The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (starred review)

A celebration of the harbingers and vestiges of seasonal change. . . . Robin's cut-paper collages are charmingly old-fashioned yet still feel relevant and fun, and they use color palettes that shift with the seasons. . . . Seasonal rituals come alive in this by turns bittersweet and joyful ode to beginnings and endings.

—Kirkus Reviews 

This ode to change, filled with gorgeous cut-paper illustrations, captures the elusive magic of how one season becomes another, right before our eyes.
—The Virginian Pilot

Each sentiment and sentence presented by author Leda Schubert is accompanied by lavish illustrations from Clover Robin. The combination is a timeless and relevant book that can be read and re-read.
—The Florida Times-Union

This ode to nature by Leda Schubert and illustrations by Clover Robin shares the anticipation of a new season, while enjoying the beauty of the current.
—Tiny Beans