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The author encourages children to make nature their friend by being curious, creative, and kind. Small icons throughout the book encourage use of the senses and note opportunities for readers to learn something, notice their feelings while in nature, or just be part of it all. The bulk of the book focuses on signs of spring and where to find them: frogs’ eggs, birds’ nests, new plant growth, longer days, and baby animals. Several poems will tickle readers’ ears as they listen for more signals of the season or read a delicious ode to mud. Lots of activities are sprinkled throughout, from journaling your observations and building a rain gauge to painting pebbles, making seed balls and bird nests, and pond dipping. Lessons on the water cycle, the growth of a seed, the identification of spring flowers and birds’ eggs, the tadpole-to-frog life cycle, the formation of rainbows, and why the Earth warms during spring will go down easily amid all these sensory-heavy, hands-on activities. Aptly, Brouwers’ realistic, watercolor-esque illustrations are rendered in light blues, greens, and yellows. The focus is on nature, but what glimpses there are of children show them varying in skin tone.
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