Fashionable Foliage: Fancy Nancy and the Fall Foliage by Jane O'Connor

HOORAY!

FALL IS MY FAVORITE SEASON. I LOVE HOW THE FOLIAGE CHANGES COLOR. (FOLIAGE IS FANCY FOR ALL THE LEAVES.)

For a redhead like Nancy Clancy, the colors of the fall leaves are a natural backdrop. She changes into autumnal shades ("fabu" hues!) and heads out to get into the fun of raking up the falling leaves.

Her little sister JoJo and dog Frenchy have other ideas about what to do with the fluffy piles of fall-tinged foliage, but Nancy is in such an ebullient mood that she joins them in a few seasonal dives into the leaves herself.

While Mom and Dad persevere with the raking and bagging, Nancy notices a maple leaf in an arrestingly unusual color--burgundy (fancy for reddish purple) and Ooh-la-la!--the decorative possibilities that present themselves to Nancy's aesthetic side!!

Mom suggests an autumn leaf scrapbook, but Nancy's been there and done that--last year yet! Dad's idea is leaf prints, but that's not quite innovative enough for Nancy either!

I WANT TO DO SOMETHING EXTREMELY CREATIVE!

Always fashion forward, Nancy comes up with a craft idea that combines autumn leaves with the season which follows--a fall foliage wreath for the front door that celebrates autumn and hints at the December holiday to come:

IT'S NEVER TOO EARLY TO START GETTING READY FOR CHRISTMAS!

Jane O'Connor's Nancy always has an eye for fashion and decor, and in her latest celebration of the season, Fancy Nancy and the Fall Foliage (HarperFestival, 2014), she pictures the Clancy clan pitching in to make even yard work an opportunity for family fun. Robin Preiss Glaser and associate artist Carolyn Brand pitch in as well with exuberant illustrations of Fancy Nancy doing what she does so well. Pair this one with O'Connor's top-selling and wryly witty portrayal of an extended family Thanksgiving feast, Fancy Nancy: Our Thanksgiving Banquet.

Getting to First Down: Fall Ball by Peter McCarty

In the fall leaves whirled past the windows of the big yellow bus.

"Football in the park in ten minutes!" Bobby calls.

Promising his mom to be back before dark, Bobby drops off his books at home and dashes back to meet his teammates. Jimmy is snared by his parents to rake leaves, and sadly watches the others gathering for a game as he struggles to corral the swirling leaves into something like a pile.

But getting off a scrimmage isn't that easy. There isn't much in the way of an offensive line, and when Bobby goes back for a pass, his dog Sparky thinks he's the intended receiver. He makes a good catch, but runs a little out of bounds, right into the center of Jimmy's hard-earned leaf pile!

But just as Bobby gets his ball back, he hears an unexpected call for time out!

"Time to come home!" call the parents.

"Already?" says Bobby.

And then, to underline the futility of fall football, it starts to snow.

Game over!

But at least there's a big game on the tube after supper, in Pete McCarty's nostalgic new book, Fall Ball (Henry Holt, 2013). McCarty's stylized little ballplayers, their hair blown straight up in the breeze, amid the whirl and swirl of falling fall foliage and set in the center of heavy creamy pages, gives this story a sturdy, homey feel, right down to the old-fashioned television set decorated with fall pumpkins on top as the kids settle down cozily for a little football after all. A pleasant slice-of-life story as warm as a piece of autumn apple pie, McCarty's story makes the most of autumn ambience. "A likable ode to the perennial pleasures of autumn and friends," says Kirkus Reviews.

McCarty is the author-illustrator of the Caldecott-winning Hondo and Fabian.

Snow Time: First Snow in the Woods: A Photographic Fantasy by Carl Sams and Jean Stoick

The chipmunk is a know-it-all busybody.

"HEY, SPOTTY! YOU DON'T LOOK SO GOOD. YOU'RE LOSING YOUR SPOTS! BETTER START HIDING YOUR ACORNS!"

"WHY WOULD I WANT TO HIDE ACORNS?" WONDERED THE FAWN.

"ACORNS ARE EVERYWHERE."

But the chipmunk knows a secret. And indeed, it seems everyone else is in the know except the young deer. Something big is about to happen. The woolly bear caterpillar chomps his way hurriedly across a fern in the dewy morning. The monarch butterfly leaves for a faraway summer elsewhere. The green leaves change colors and float down, down, down, and the woodchuck has only one word for him: "Hibernate!" A change is coming, he seems to say. It will come when the dragonflies no longer fly. The little deer feels as if he's being abandoned by the only world he knows.

"WHY CAN'T EVERYTHING STAY THE SAME?"

It's a thought that crosses our human minds, too, as summer seems to flee from us all too soon, and the little deer has the same anxiety we all feel.

"BUT I'M NOT READY!"

But Mama is wise in the ways of the world. She knows that her baby is now big and strong, with a thick, new coat. And she knows just where to go when the snow begins to blow.

"YOU ARE READY FOR THE FIRST SNOW OF THE WINTER," SAYS MAMA DOE.
LISTEN TO YOUR HEARTSONG. FOLLOW ME."

Carl Sams' and Jean Stoick's lovely First Snow in the Woods: A Photographic Fantasy (Carl R. Sams Photography, 2007, 2010) chronicles the coming of winter, from the first liftoff of the brown owl and Canada geese for the southward journey to the first snowflake of winter, in a beautiful picture essay which personifies the enormous changes from high summer to windswept snowscape in elegant text and beautiful illustrative photos, a book which is a good readaloud for those classroom seasonal units as well as for quiet contemplation.

Sams' and Stoick's earlier best-selling photographic nature essays include Stranger in the Woods: A Photographic Fantasy (Nature) Winter Friends, and Lost in the Woods: A Photographic Fantasy (Connect-It).

Fall-out! There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves by Lucille Colandro

THERE WAS AN OLD LADY WHO SWALLOWED SOME LEAVES.

I DON'T KNOW WHY SHE SWALLOWED THOSE LEAVES.

PERHAPS SHE'LL SNEEZE!

That omnivorous old lady is back for another gluttonous seasonal session, this time in a salute to the icons of autumn. In turn she gobbles down an old shirt to hold the leaves, a pumpkin for the shirt to wear, a pole to hold up the pumpkin, and some pants and a rope to hold up the pants, all to fill out the ensemble. She's surely getting full, but at last it's time for the dessert....

THERE WAS AN OLD LADY WHO SWALLOWED SOME HAY.

SHE DIDN'T SAY WHY SHE SWALLOWED SOME HAY....

SHE DID IT WITH EASE

AND STARTED TO SNEEZE--

ACHOOO!

Even preschoolers unfamiliar with the other Lucille Colandro books will probably be similarly bursting to tell what's going to come next--when with that sneeze out comes a fully assembled scarecrow, the historic symbol (going back to medieval England's "Corn Mann") to wish one and all a Happy Fall!

Colandro's latest entry into this popular series, There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves! (Scholastic, 2010) follows the familiar folk song's catchy, kid-pleasing rhythm and rhyme scheme in this salute to the changing seasons. Follow this one up with her There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat! for a seasonal sing-along stew to welcome both fall and Halloween.