Learning about Nature: Spring Nature Books for Kids

I read together with my kids a ton; it's a great way to explore. Together we've been exploring the concept of spring from several facets: how it affects animals, what it means for plants, and the mystery and meaning behind it that inspires us as humans.

Spring for Animals

Our special reading for the first day of Spring (Vernal Equinox) was Snow Rabbit, Spring Rabbit: A Book of Changing Seasons by Il Sung Na, which teaches the different survival strategies of animals living through the winter until spring arrives. A little rabbit travels all over to see what the many animals of the forest, air, and water do.

Simply beautiful illustrations - layered and colorful, full of whimsy. The uniqueness, creativity, and cleverness of each animal shines through. I also love Na's careful word choice; for example, for wild geese it reads:

Some fly away from the cold.

Often we explain that "birds fly south for the winter," but this evokes a different understanding. All winter we have watched the Canadian geese fly back and forth over our skies as the temperatures change constantly here with the crazy Colorado weather. My daughter and I also enjoyed the squirrel pages, as we have watched two "squirrelers" eat constantly the past months.

Spring for Plants

We added this book (plus a new metal watering can) a few days later: And Then It's Spring by Julie Fogliano, told in rhythmic open verse.

First you have brown, all around you have brown     

and then there are seeds         

and a wish for rain

A little boy, along with his dog, rabbit, and turtle, plant a garden and carefully watch and wait for spring to arrive. There is such patience, curiosity, and love present in how he is in his garden. I love how he clearly spends each day outside, no matter the weather, experiencing and accepting it just as it is. He clearly isn't one where the sun needs to shine every day for happiness. This is one of those books where there are lots of little details to talk about in addition to the story. My preschooler watered each of the seeds over and over again on each page to help transform the brown world into a green one.

What Spring Means to Us

With some of the mystery of Old World Europe, Rechenka's Eggs by Patricia Polacco provides a wonderful way to connect the themes of Easter to the beginning of spring. Babushka, an old woman living alone, has always spent the long winters lovingly painting special eggs for the Easter Festival, but when she nurses a injured goose back to health, she is rewarded with a beautiful surprise.

This book is full of layers of meaning. Babushka is a wise woman, seen through the understanding and compassion she shows all the animals she meets - caribou, geese. All winter long she paints eggs, a symbol of rebirth and new life. Winter is an introspective time, a time to turn within. The earth rests and all growth and change happens quietly underground - as it does within us. The ritual Babushka uses to prepare for spring is to paint these beautiful reminders, a meditation on spring.

Her grateful goose lays 12 amazingly beautiful eggs to replace those that were broken, plus one magically come alive. Twelve is the number of the solar calendar (12 months), and the first day of spring, the vernal equinox, is determined by the sun's cycle. However, 13 is the number of months in the lunar calendar, and the date of Easter is determined both by the sun and the moon cycles. Seeing the significance of animals in this story, 13 is the more interesting - Joseph Campbell comments in his book, The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology, that in ancient cultures, the cycle of the moon was frequently used as the calendar by societies which relied on herding animals because it was more significant to the mating/birthing cycle. This is true of the ancient Hebrews, which lead to the lunar Jewish calendar, which in turn affected the date of Easter due to the relationship with the Jewish festival of Passover.

Just as the Easter story is one of a great miracle, Babushka finds many things full of wonder. The book is rhythmic in her refrain, "A miracle!" She shows a depth, a groundedness to the world, which is at the same time willing to be amazed. She lacks the detached arrogance that we sometimes take on in modern society. Are her miracles simple, or can we stop and see that, yes, truly these are miracles?

• Hungry caribou willing to come to Babushka to feed - "A miracle... These wild things have found their way to me."
• A goose who lays eggs brilliant in color - "A miracle!"
• Having just the right number of beautiful eggs appear to replace those she had lost - "A miracle has replaced the eggs that were broken."
• A goose who is such a companion to Babushka through the winter - "I shall sorely miss you, but you are a wild thing... and a miracle sent you to me. It would not be right to ask you to stay here with me forever."
• Caribou mothers with their newborn calves - "A miracle... New little lives... a miracle."
• A gosling born from a mother seemingly without a father - "All a miracle."

These are a mix of the magical and the explainable - but no less a miracle. New life is miraculous, nature amazes us with how things are created anew. If we saw all of our blessings as surprises, we could see life as full of joy and beauty as this wise old woman.


Check out other nature books on the References page.