Goodbye Autumn, Hello Winter, a seasonal great good-night book

When the leaves start to fall I do it too. When I was hiking in the mountains the other week I found myself casually talking to the leaves on the ground, scattering chipmunks or twisted trees.  The premise behind Goodbye Autumn, Hello Winter by author/illustrator Kenard Pak is that when children speak to the things in nature they reply back to them. It’s a simple, daydream mentality that every kid through first grade does.

This is the way that our kindergarten age child communicates with most objects. “Oh hello Mr. Bird-How are you doing today?”, he’ll gleefully prattle about he walks back from the bus stop. The only difference between Goodbye Autumn, Hello Winter and small children is that the objects in the book talk back.

They don’t say much, they merely tell the girl and her younger brother who are the human characters in the book exactly what it is they do. For example when the two are home and getting ready for bed they say, ‘Hello, silent night’. The night politely and quietly tells them, ‘shhhh…I quiet the juniper and maple trees’.

If you’re new to great good-night books this is a great place to jump in and explore. A great good-night book is one that you can read to children who are seven or younger when you tuck them into bed. It’s a book that short enough to re-read more than once, has immersive, detailed pictures that allow you to teach vocabulary and probably has a couple simple sight words.

Goodbye Autumn, Hello Winter works due to its art and the simplicity of its vocabulary. The illustrations are beautiful and diverse, with the two youths spending time in the country, wood, city and suburban locations. They also experience nature at a variety of times in the day and weather conditions. It makes used of lots of soft, muted colors, bright orange tones for some leaves, hazy yellow blobs for the Ginko Trees and lots of big gorgeous white dots for the snowy scenes.

This is our first experience to Kenard Pak but it makes us want to seek out his earlier book Goodbye Summer, Hello Autumn. I suspect the next book in the series will be called Goodbye Winter, Hello Spring-and kids in first grade and younger will hang on every beautifully crafted page.