Fall Leaves

Autumn is a magical time of the year. Gold and amber and ruby and other precious colors push summer hues away. Heat gives way to chill and lingering days give way to longer nights. Writer Loretta Holland and illustrator Elly MacKay have joined their talents to create a fresh look at this bewitching time of the year. Each left-hand page in the book has a large title and short writing about a particular action or thing that is fall related such as “Flowers Leave” or “Temperature Falls.”

The writing is very poetic, but is not made up of poems. Every title uses Fall/Falls or Leave/Leaves in it, tying each one to the title of the book. Each facing page has a beautiful, luminous illustration of two young people, a boy and a girl, enjoying this lovely time of the year. Sometimes they are the focus of the illustration, but occasionally they are simply in the background for a brilliant close-up of some woodland creature. This is a book to savor, to spend time with, finding the lovely turns of phrase or the enchanting details in the illustrations.