Five Fall Reads

Instead of a traditional top five Friday I thought I'd offer up five Fall reads that we love to enjoy each year. The focus of these titles are trees/leaves. The fall foliage is possibly my favorite part of this season, we talk a lot about leaves, enjoy lots of nature walks and of course fun playing with leaves. I already featured one of our all time favorite reads The Little Yellow Leaf by Carin Beger so I won't repeat it here. Oh and I've got 6 not 5. So here's what we head to our local library to stock up on for great fall reads (in no particular order).

1. Count Down to Fall by Fran Hawk and illustrated by Sherry Neidigh
Counting down fall with various types of leaves and seeds in a single stanza rhyming verse. Great for learning different types of leaves plus there are activities in the back for continued learning.




2. A Grand Old Tree by Mary Newell DePalma
Not specific to Fall as it shares the life cycle of a tree it does make a nice pairing to fall reads. Adding this book helps understand the process of change in trees and why they turn colors in the fall. Simple beautiful watercolor illustrations accompany the equally simple and beautiful text.





3. Leaf Jumpers by Carole Gerber and illustrated by Leslie Evans
Goes through common types of leaves with amazing hand-colored linoleum-cut illustrations that capture the vividness of color in the autumn foliage.




4. Leaves by David Ezra Stein
Sweet, autumn colored watercolor illustrations accompany this story of a young bear's first autumn. The story is told from a young child's perspective of wonder as this young bear doesn't know why the leaves are falling from the trees and the world is changing all around him.



5. Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf by Lois Ehlert
Amazing collage art accompanies this story of a young child's sharing about their favorite tree. It starts from a young seedling in the forest to a nursery to their backyard. But the favorite season of their tree is fall. Useful info on trees, planting a tree and making a bird treat for your tree follows this story at the end of the book.



6. It's Fall! by Linda Glaser
Okay this is not just about leaves and I've featured Linda Glaser before and I've already got 5 books here but I love how she handles the seasons and the three dimensional collage artwork. I also love at the end of the books there are always suggested seasonal nature activities.