Oh, the cruel and fickle ways of spring!

How it one day inspires such hope and joy and enthusiasm, then the next it spits snow in your face and mocks you in your optimistic, non-down jacket.

The slant of the sun, the extended daylight, the intermittent peeps of warmth, all turn you against what were formally the “joys of winter.” Skiing, hot soup, and cocoa all now regarded with abhorrence.

Give me my rake, some seeds and sun! Let me hear the sounds of birds and smell the thawing earth!

But, no. Not so fast. Spring takes its time. And there is not a single thing you can do about it but wait, and hope, and dream.

And commiserate.

Author Julie Fogliano and illustrator Erin Stead (of Sick Day for Amos McGee fame) know exactly how you feel. And they will help you through with their beautiful book, And Then It’s Spring.

 

First you have brown,

all around you have brown

and then…

a hopeful, very possible sort of brown

and then…

the brown,

still brown

has a greenish hum

And, with incredible illustrations of woodblock print and pencil, we are reminded of the joy found in anticipation, of the beauty of the earth’s slow transition to spring.  How, even with optimism and enthusiasm, it cannot be rushed.  But it will come.

You know it will come.

Ah, spring, toy with us as you will, for you are what you are.

And you are beautiful.