MY AUTUMN BOOK

In the fourth installment of Yee’s seasonal picture-book quartet (Who Likes Rain?, 2007, etc.), a girl celebrates the coming of autumn and finds a special way to remember it when it’s over.

Yee’s rhyming text conveys the first-person narrator’s excitement as summer turns to fall. She delights in exploring the natural world and uses a camera, pencil, and sketchbook to record observations. A trusty backpack carries these supplies and holds colorful, fallen leaves and acorns, too. The story ultimately suggests that the most precious things she collects are memories of time spent in autumnal beauty, and she uses scissors, glue, crayons, and the photos and items she’s gathered to create the eponymous “autumn book.” Closing spreads show her cozied up inside her house and looking at her scrapbook on wintry days. Throughout, Yee’s Prismacolor illustrations consistently reflect the girl’s experiences while also employing design choices to bring readers close to her activities—some pictures are made to look like photos the girl took with her camera, for example. On the other hand, while readers might believe the girl took the depicted photos, the rhyming style of the text (while consistent with the other books in the series) can make the narration feel a bit forced alongside the more successful artistic rendering of the child’s point of view.

Quibble aside, a sound conclusion to the series.