GOODBYE AUTUMN, HELLO WINTER

A brother and sister walk through woods and town, acknowledging autumn and welcoming winter in this picture book.

Expanding on Goodbye Summer, Hello Autumn (2016), author/illustrator Pak continues the theme, this time with a black-haired, brown-skinned boy and girl who ramble through woods, town, and countryside as they converse with the trees, birds, horses, sheep, deer, snow, and wind, saying goodbye to fall and hello to winter. The digitally enhanced watercolor-and-pencil illustrations are as quiet and graceful as the slow passage of the seasons. Diversity, both ethnically and culturally (a Kwanzaa kinara, a Jewish menorah, and a star-topped Christmas tree are all included in the illustrative details, as are various colors of people), is well-represented. But many of the nature facts in the text are inaccurate. Cardinals don’t “fly far, far south,” daisies of the type illustrated do not bloom in the late autumn, and autumn evenings (as opposed to nights) are shorter, not longer. Such lapses make the whole story suffer. Factual errors aside, the story flows well—its cadence is serene and accepting, with a pleasant, otherworldly quality that is reinforced by the soft double-spread illustrations.

Lovely to look at; frustratingly inaccurate.