Celebrate SPRING with Picture Books by Kevin Henkes




Spring is finally here!

One of my favorite ways (besides getting outside!) to nurture in my kids a connection with the natural world is through books! In this post I share some favorite picture books by Kevin Henkes that are perfect for celebrating the return of spring. These books have simple but lovely text and illustrations. All three of my kids have enjoyed these titles, but I especially love that my 6yo, a beginning reader, can read these titles with a small amount of help from mama. I try to have her read a book to me each day, and while there are many wonderful easy readers, sometimes it is fun to read a big lovely picture book together instead. Many of these titles are available in both large hardcover and board book formats.

This post may contain Amazon affiliate links. Your purchase via these links helps support my blog.
My 6yo enjoying looking at the illustrations in Old Bear. Bear is dreaming of sleeping in a crocus.


Egg
Four eggs. One big surprise! Super simple text with illustrations that help tell a funny sweet story. Most small children could easily memorize this book.



Little White Rabbit
This book describes rabbit's adventures using predictable sentence patterns (perfect for beginning readers!) alternating with full spread illustrations without words (a la The Runaway Bunny). Fun and imaginative.




Old Bear
What do hibernating bears dream about? Here is one set of possibilities. One thing is for sure. When a bear wakes up, it's spring!




A Good Day
A bad day for four little animals is transformed into a good day for all in this colorfully illustrated story that any child can relate to.






When Spring Comes
Birds
These two books are written by Kevin Henkes but illustrated by Laura Dronzek, a fact which sparked some interesting discussion with my older daughter (who loves to write and illustrate her own books) about why a talented illustrator such as Kevin Henkes would choose to have someone else illustrate his books. These two picture books have such a wonderful marriage of text and illustration. When Spring Comes celebrates all the wonderful firsts that signal the return of spring. Birds is not a title specifically about spring, but to me birds mean spring, and an abundance of bird song in the morning is one of my favorite signs that spring has returned. I really adore this book, which includes the wonderful line: "If birds made marks with their tail feathers when they flew, think what the sky would look like."

Sometimes when I go to the library and I'm browsing the shelves, I just end up checking out a bunch of books by the same author. That's what happened here. I was looking for a specific book by Kevin Henkes, and then saw all these other wonderful springy titles next to it and thought, what better way to celebrate spring with all my kiddos, but especially with my beginning reader.


Here are links to all our favorite picture book read-alouds by subject: 
What are you favorite books about spring?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

12 Favorite Picture Books about the American Revolution to Read Aloud

Image
This past fall my three children and I spent months immersed in the American Revolution. This was in large part due to the amazing number of fabulous children's picture books about the period. Every week I brought home armfuls of new books from the library. The following list represents the cream of the crop out of the dozens and dozens of picture books we read, the books most beloved by me and my three kids (10, 8, and 6-years-old). All were read aloud by me to my book-loving, squirmy, silly children on the sofa. Many of these picture books feature additional fascinating historical information in the endnotes. We often read aloud these pages as well!
Read more

Christina Rossetti - Poetry Picture Books

Image
Disclosure: This post may contain Amazon affiliate links. Your purchase via these links helps support my blog. We recently spent 6 weeks learning about and reading poetry by Christina Rossetti. Here were some of our favorite resources. Given how frequently you find Rossetti's poetry in children's poetry anthologies, I was surprised how difficult it was to find a compilation of her work that I liked. I ending up purchasing two books for our studies because neither of the library systems I frequent had any decent Rossetti poetry volume or biography.
Read more

Gordon Parks: Photojournalist of the Civil Rights Era (Resources for Artist Study)

Image
This past spring, we visited an exhibit of photographs by Gordon Parks. Gordon Parks was an African-American photographer who became prominent in U.S. documentary photojournalism in the 1940s through 1970s, particularly in issues of civil rights, poverty and African-Americans. I was especially excited about learning more about Parks because his photos are so rich with history, and we are a history-loving family! Parks, a self-taught photographer who was born into poverty and segregation in rural Kansas, created many iconic photos during the civil rights era. This artist study was one of my favorite experiences from our entire school year. I love studying an artist and then visiting their works in person. I actually went twice to the exhibit with two groups I organized: my son’s high school group and my daughter’s middle school group. During the second visit, we attended a talk by the curator of the exhibit. I loved hearing how she selected works from their collection to exhibit and her
Read more