Books to Journey Through England’s Seasons
Angela Harding is a talented writer and artist, who has illustrated many books, and written more herself. Her lovely quartet of seasonal books is a delight. You can buy all four books as a gift quartet.
The author reflects on this season of new life, as it transforms around her. She takes in landscapes across the land. From her home garden studio in England’s smallest county of Rutland to the low-lying Suffolk marshlands and the windswept hills of Yorkshire. And even to the wildness of Scotland, over the border.
Winter’s Song is a beautifully illustrated pocket hardback guide to the season of winter. This really is something else, a delightful gift for someone you love, or for yourself as bedtime reading. The author reflects on this season of new life, as it transforms around her. She takes in landscapes across the land.
When the snow falls quickly, it brings dramatic change. Hare, rabbit and bird tracks become visible in the lanes and fields.
Read our posts on keeping safe in snow and frosty mornings.
Spring Unfurled (a printmaker’s view)
Spring Unfurled is a beautifully illustrated pocket hardback guide to the season of spring. This really is something else, a delightful gift for someone you love, or for yourself as bedtime reading.
The seasons are nature’s clock, bringing birds from distant shores to nest and breed. Seasons have no regard for official times. When the days shorten and the evening air is chilly, they know it’s time to leave.
Falling into Autumn: A Printmaker’s View
Autumn season in England casts a golden hue and chill in the air, as nights draw in, birds prepare for migration and animals prepare for winter hibernation. Trees lose their leaves and , and horse chestnut trees drop their seeds (keep conkers and leaf mould away from dogs).
Falling into Autumn is a beautiful book of prose and art from a printmaker, who inspires others with her personal encounters with nature, inspired by watching jays gathering acorns, and hearing owls hooting.
I am inspired by watching jays gathering acorns, owls hooting and the joy of hearing nightingales. In the shady part of my garden, ferns grow. By the autumn, these same leaves are starting to go brown at the edges.
This seems to be at the same time that the swallows gather to leave. Together with the ferns, they are markers that the summer has gone; that one season has finished and another is about to begin.
A perfect book for anyone who loves art and nature, with beautiful illustrations and evocative imagery. The book features over 30 of Angela’s favourite prints, alongside observations taken from her previous books.
In an interview, she notes that as a child, while other children had pictures of pop stars on their walls, she had images of different birds!
Summer’s Hum completes the quartet.
A 1000 Mile Walk through a British Spring
Across a Waking Land is the story a nature writer, who sets out on a walk, to match the pace at which oak leaves emerge (roughly 20 miles north each day).
Did you know all spring bulbs (including daffodils) are not safe near pets? Read more on pet-friendly gardens.
Fed up with bleak headlines of biodiversity loss, he fights illness, blizzards (and his own ageing body) to visit every main habitat from between Lymington and Cape Wrath, in an epic 8-week adventure.
And meets those who are fighting for nature (along with kind strangers) with life-changing and positive conclusions.
High upon a Pennine fell, I am sheltering in the lee of a dry-stone wall, watching driven snow scudding across a copper sky over my head. I watch it gathering on my pack, feel it on my neck and cheek.
A few metres to my right, an old Swaledale ewe lies tight to the wall, lumps of frozen snow gathering in her fleece. She is eyeing me sullenly and going nowhere.
Roger Morgan-Grenville is a former soldier who now writes and campaigns on conservation issues. He is chair of trustees of the conservation charity Curlew Action.
An Autumn Day for Bear (not in England!)
Autumn season in England casts a golden hue and chill in the air, as nights draw in, birds prepare for migration and animals prepare for winter hibernation. Trees lose their leaves and, and horse chestnut trees drop their seeds (keep conkers and leaf mould away from dogs).
An Autumn Day for Bear is a charming book, to teach children of the seasons. Bear and Mouse are best friends. But ready to go for a picnic, Bear is concerned when his little friend does not tap on his front door.
So he goes outside to find him sitting on a stump. Both agree that this is the worst day ever – the leaves are falling, the flowers are going and the birds are leaving..
But once they discover slippery puddles, wonderfully messy mud (and tea with pickles in front of a crackling fire), Bear and Mouse realise that this preposterous day, may not be so bad after all.
Bear liked the cold in the air.
He liked the wind in his fur.
He liked the rustle and tumble of the leaves.
He especially liked the feeling, that something was about to happen!
This beautiful story covers the triple themes of autumn, friendship and even bird migration. A charming read for rainy days!
Bonny Becker has written several award-winning picture books and lives in Seattle, USA. Kady Macdonald Denton has illustrated several children’s books, and lives in Ontario, Canada.
