In a beautiful new collaboration, writer Julie Fogliano and illustrator Erin E. Stead capture the long, slow season of renewal. Instead of eye-popping flowers and gobs of glorious greens, this picture book begins: “First you have brown, / all around you have brown.” This is the way spring is, especially around my home in New England, where April and even May can be dreary, cold and brown.

There’s nothing at all dreary, however, in And Then It’s Spring, as a boy and his dog plant vegetable seeds and wait for them to grow. The story follows the days of endless waiting, worry and hope as the boy and his dog stand patiently in sun and rain, waiting for signs of life.

This delicate tale is also filled with immediate, easily accessible fun. A bevy of animals—including birds, a rabbit, a turtle and even bears—helps keep watch over the seeds’ progress. The woodblock and pencil drawings by Stead, a Caldecott Award-winning artist, are pitch perfect, full of quiet anticipation. In one scene, Stead shows the boy, his dog and a rabbit with their ears to the ground, while below are labyrinths of activity as ants, worms, mice and chipmunks travel through underground tunnels, and garden seeds sprout deep roots.

Finally, of course, after weeks of waiting, there comes that magic day: “but the brown isn’t around / and now you have green, / all around you have green.” The boy lazily swings in a tire swing over his garden, barefoot and with his face turned gleefully upward, being warmed by the lovely spring sun. The garden finally comes to life in this subtle ode to hope, patience and rebirth.

Based on the real-life story of a special box that linked a mother and son, The Kiss Box is a sweet and simple picture book about a love so strong that distance can’t diminish it. This nostalgic charmer—reminiscent of mother-child classics like The Runaway Bunny—will pull at the heartstrings of any mother separated from a child and reassure any little one who is anxious about Mama’s departure.

In an author’s note, Bonnie Verburg explains that the inspiration for the story came from a “remarkable gift” her son received when he was very young. Verburg is a longtime children’s book editor and her son’s godparents were the noted author-illustrator duo Audrey and Don Wood. The Woods presented Verburg’s son with a small jar, to be filled with kisses and used as a reminder of love when mother and son were apart. Years later, after the kiss jar became dented and worn, Verburg made a “kiss box” for her son to take on a long trip.

In Verburg’s new picture book, delightfully illustrated by Henry Cole (Jack’s Garden, A Nest for Celeste), Mama Bear informs her Little Bear that she is going away on a short trip. The uneasy look on Little Bear’s face tells the story: This little guy isn’t happy about Mama’s departure and will need plenty of loving encouragement before they part.

Mama takes her son on a picnic and patiently explains that they can send love to each other even when they’re separated. “I can’t stay home,” Mama Bear tells him. “But I can leave you a hundred kisses to keep you company. And every time you miss me, you will have all those kisses.”

Little Bear makes his own special container for Mama’s kisses and goes to sleep clutching the box, safe in the knowledge that she is thinking of him wherever she is.

The soothing outdoor scenes where much of the book is set are lovingly depicted by Cole, who used childhood memories of a favorite spot (his uncle's farm) as inspiration. Butterflies, birds and turtles hover nearby as mother and son discuss the upcoming trip and their unbreakable bond.

The tender message of Verburg’s story has timeless appeal. And what could be a better activity for Valentine's Day than making a "kiss box" to share with a child, grandchild or other special little one in your life?

It is no surprise that David Petersen (creator of the Eisner Award-winning comic book series Mouse Guard) attributes his inspiration to cartoons, comics and tree-climbing. Readers of his debut picture book, Snowy Valentine, could easily believe this author/illustrator spends much of his time perched in trees, watching the daily lives of woodland creatures. In the spirit of The Wind in the Willows, Petersen offers a charming portrayal of the sweet, subtle relationships among the animals in a snow-covered forest.

On Valentine’s Day, Jasper Bunny heads out in search of a gift for Lilly. He seems undeterred by how small he is (even in relation to his own impossibly large ears) as he seeks gift recommendations from his neighbors. However, he can’t knit like the porcupines, Mrs. Frog’s chocolate-covered flies won’t do and the raccoon’s flowers have wilted in the cold. Jasper narrowly escapes Teagan Fox’s gift for his vixen—a rabbit stew swirling with potatoes, onions and (oh, irony!) carrots.

When Jasper is about to give up, his ears drooping and his red coat dripping, he exclaims, “I have nothing for Lilly.” High above, Spalding the cardinal sees Jasper’s true gift—an enormous heart tracked in the snow. Lilly steps out of her burrow to see “the heart he had made for her . . . and she loved it.”

Petersen’s ink and digitally colored illustrations are full of personality, movement and light. Their precision in capturing the temperatures and textures of winter is unmatched, from the low-hanging sun leaking through the skeletal trees to the contrast of a fire’s glow with the purples and blues of the forest. Breathtaking bird’s-eye spreads make Jasper seem so very small, yet when he is just about to give up, the illustrations reveal his power to do great things.

Young readers, no matter how small, will enjoy seeing just how big the gift of love can be, as well as their own ability to give it.

When Blue Met Egg is a delightful story about a spunky bluebird named Blue who lives in Central Park. When a snowball flies through the air and lands in Blue’s nest, Blue adopts the newcomer, mistaking it for an egg, and taking it everywhere for several wintry months.

Newcomer Lindsay Ward combines this charming story with funky illustrations created from cut-paper collages and sketches, taking readers on a bird’s-eye tour of New York City. Blue and Egg travel to Columbus Circle, the subway, an art museum, the opera, the top of a skyscraper and to a telescope pointed at the Statue of Liberty. A wonderful fold-out section features Blue and Egg perched atop the Brooklyn Bridge.

Look closely at these illustrations and you’ll see bits of newspaper in Blue’s nest, skyscrapers fashioned from test answer forms, crossword puzzles and graph paper in the Central Park snow, maps in the East River. The beauty of Ward’s style is that these fragments are a seamless part of each illustration: present, but not overpowering the art. Blue’s nest appears so cozy that you can practically feel its softness, while the snow appears to fall from the sky in a panoramic skyscraper scene.

Ward moves the story along with gentle humor, as Blue unsuccessfully tries to share a hot dog with Egg, or reads The Golden Egg to her friend. Finally, Blue tries to feed Egg soup as Egg begins to melt, but (as with the hot dog) it doesn’t go well.

When Blue Met Egg is about hope, friendship and undying optimism. When Egg melts, Blue panics, but ultimately finds happiness: She discovers a pink flower in Egg’s melted snowball puddle, and exclaims, “Egg, you’ve bloomed!” Blue always sees a glass as half full, which is a sweet, lasting message for young readers.

Deborah Hopkinson is the kind of writer who puts the accent on the “story” part of the word “history.” If you look back at her work for young readers, from picture books to middle grade nonfiction, you’ll find she uses this approach carefully and in a way that brings the reader right into the time and story. Even if the reader had little interest in the topic at the beginning, she or he finds this new place or time or person just as fascinating as Hopkinson does. It’s a special gift.

This time, as we near the 200th birthday of Charles Dickens, she tells the fictionalized tale of Charles Dickens’ childhood in A Boy Called Dickens. And what a childhood it was, downright . . . Dickensian. Told in the first person, there is a sense of mysterious immediacy that draws the reader right into the story.

“We are here to search for a boy called Dickens. . . . There are ragged children here, to be sure, scrambling for bits of copper and wood to sell.” The reader finds Dickens and he is not on his way to school (he has long since sold his books) but on his way to work—10 hours a day at a blackening factory, where he and other boys make shoe polish. And if this isn’t enough, he spends his weekend visiting his family in debtor’s prison. When his family is released and no longer needs his income, “Charles is still sent off to work ten hours a day, six days a week.” And how, reader, does Dickens keep going? He tells stories to the other boys and writes them down, filling them with “pickpockets; a miserly old man; a young gentleman with great expectations; a proud heartless girl.”

Adding to the feel of the place—the old London of child laborers, squeaking rats and debtor’s prisons—are John Hendrix’s atmospheric mixed-media illustrations. Using pen and ink, acrylics and charcoal, it’s the charcoal that lets the reader know what life was like for everyone, even children, in Dickens’ time. The soot and smog serve as indicators that things were far from easy for Dickens and his fellow workers. When Charles’ father is shamed into letting Charles quit his job, the tone of the illustrations lightens considerably, a visual cue that things will get better for this little boy with big stories and an even bigger dream of becoming a writer.

This fascinating slice of life will allow young children to understand the life that inspired A Christmas Carol and Oliver, stories they are likely to know. And if they don’t know these stories, Hopkinson’s fine book (with a very interesting author’s note) will certainly pique their interest.

A second grade teacher at the Ensworth School in Nashville, Robin Smith served on the 2011 Caldecott Committee.

One thing leads to another, an adage proven delightfully true in Stuck, the latest in a string of visually distinctive and endearing picture books by author-illustrator Oliver Jeffers.

A native of Northern Ireland who lives and works in Brooklyn, Jeffers has won awards and admirers for several previous books that showcase his imaginative style, including How to Catch a Star, Lost and Found and The Incredible Book-Eating Boy.

In Stuck, young Floyd—a stick figure sporting a red-checked shirt—starts a crescendo of trouble when he gets his kite stuck in a tree. Throwing a shoe to dislodge the kite, Floyd finds that the shoe gets stuck, too. He decides to throw his other shoe, then a cat named Mitch, a ladder, a bucket of paint . . . and on and on, until the tree is cluttered with objects large and small, including the proverbial kitchen sink.

Jeffers’ childlike lettering style and brightly colored mixed-media illustrations give Floyd’s misadventures a joyful spin. The conundrum of the stuck kite is a problem to be solved, not a reason for irritation or despair. From the cover—which shows the letters of the title entwined in the branches of a tree—to the final moonlit illustration, Jeffers’ artwork is quirky and fun, adding to the story’s considerable charm. One page shows the resourceful boy balancing a huge orangutan on his head as he prepares to lob it into the tree. On another spread, a friendly whale who happens to be “in the wrong place at the wrong time” chats with Floyd before getting his trip to the treetop.

The book has something of a surprise ending (involving a saw) but we’ll keep our account of Stuck spoiler-free. Suffice it to say that for Jeffers’ fans and those new to his work, his latest picture book is a high-flying delight.

Two patient little pigs turn an unfortunate incident into an opportunity for cooperation and friendship in Inga Moore’s delightful new picture book, A House in the Woods. This comforting and tenderly told tale will captivate little ones and any adults lucky enough to share it as a bedtime story or group read-aloud.

The two pigs (who, like all the animals in this story, walk hilariously upright on two legs) have built nice homes for themselves in the woods, one a den, the other a hut made of twigs. After a stroll, the pigs are disappointed—though never angry or petulant—to discover that a moose and a bear have taken up temporary residence in their tiny homes and wrecked them in the process.

After pondering the “pickle” of their homelessness, the four friends decide to pitch in and build a big new house where all of them can live comfortably. A crew of beavers, all sporting hardhats, is hired to help with construction, and payment in peanut butter sandwiches is promised.

English author-illustrator Inga Moore is best known for the lush and beautifully detailed landscapes in her illustrations for new editions of the classics The Wind in the Willows and The Secret Garden, as well as animal stories she has both written and illustrated (A Big Day for Little Jack and Six-Dinner Sid, among others). In A House in the Woods, leafy fall scenes of the woodland are combined with wonderfully expressive drawings of the animal characters. In one picture, the two dainty little pigs walk hand in hand with the bear while the excited moose—arms spread wide—describes just how big their new house can be. As the building of the house begins, children will enjoy watching the progress as trees are cut, stones are moved, cement is mixed and timbers are raised.

It is hard to overstate the charm of Moore’s magical illustrations, rendered in pencil, pastel and wash. The soft glow of the woods, the pink haze of sunset after a long day’s work and the flickering flames in the home’s new hearth all add to the sense that this is a warm and inviting world. When the book’s final scene arrives, and the four friends spend their first cozy night in the new home’s moonlit bedroom, young readers and listeners will be tempted to curl right up and join them.

After illustrating the Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place series and working as an animation artist for the film Coraline, Jon Klassen makes his author debut in the sly picture book I Want My Hat Back. The title says it all for one bear, who walks through a forest asking a fox, a frog, a turtle, a snake and other woodland animals if they have seen his red pointy hat. While the bear doesn’t seem to notice, children will note the rabbit’s suspicious behavior. “I haven’t seen any hats anywhere. I would not steal a hat,” he replies. “Don’t ask me any more questions.”

The story, told in dialogue represented by contrasting colors, features understated digital illustrations in muted colors with minimal grass and leaves as the backdrop. The humor is far more subtle than Mo Willem’s Pigeon books or Mélanie Watt’s Scaredy Squirrel, but that’s what gives this story its power. The bear, who is just about to give up his search, turns wide-eyed and the background red when he realizes that he did see one of the animals with his hat. A wry twist lets children use clues from the trampled leaves and the bear’s now-suspicious behavior to piece together what happened to the rabbit. Young readers and listeners will love being in on the joke, making them appreciate the story's humor even more.

Squares, circles and triangles, sure. But who knew there were so many spirals around us? Just as she did in her recent Caldecott Honor title, Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night, and Ubiquitous: Celebrating Nature’s Survivors, Joyce Sidman challenges young readers to look at their environment with fresh eyes in Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature.

Sidman’s lyrical text opens with an unexpected observation: “A spiral is a snuggling shape,” exemplified by slumbering animals coiled tight to stay warm through hibernation. It continues with a look at what a spiral is (e.g., a clever shape in a butterfly’s proboscis or a spider’s web); what a spiral does (e.g., a snail shell that protects its inhabitant); and the need for spirals (e.g., an Asian elephant that uses its spiraling trunk to grasp food).

It’s not only in plants and animals that spirals are found. A bold spiral curves to make a breaking ocean wave, while a twisting spiral forms a classic funnel tornado. Still another spiral stretches “starry arms through space” to form a galaxy. To truly understand the formation and function of these spirals, children need to see them in action. In her signature scratchboard illustrations, Caldecott Medalist Beth Krommes does just that. From a fern’s curling leaves to a merino sheep’s horns to the tentacles of an octopus, the beautifully luminous illustrations depict both predictable and unusual examples of spirals.

For curious children (and adults), a concluding double-page spread offers more information on many spirals, as well as an explanation of Fibonacci numbers and the spirals they create. It may take several reads before children notice all of the swirling spirals, but each reading will be a stunning adventure to see how the world shapes up.

David Ezra Stein, in his first book since winning the Caldecott Honor for Interrupting Chicken, continues to demonstrate incredible versatility in his illustrations while holding firm to his audience: very young readers and listeners.

This time Stein tells his story in the form of a letter—a long letter—from Mouserella to her Grandmouse. We see on the title page the poignant goodbye hug, and the dedication page is a photo captioned “you leaving.” What little mouse has not pined for her grandmother after a visit? And what should she do to lift the mood left by the departure and made worse by rain? Write a letter to Grandmouse, of course!

Mouserella does not know what to write at first, but, once she gets going, she has a LOT to say! From the state of her beaded belt to the cat at the zoo to her block tower fort and her stick-fetching ladybug to the fun of a seed parachute, Mouserella breathlessly captures every single detail of her days since her Grandmouse left. Each event is illustrated in similarly stream-of-consciousness style—with photos (taken with the camera Grandmouse left her), sketches, mementoes . . . even a special pack of ketchup. (“I bet you don’t have them in the country.”) The warm family relationship is celebrated through the little memories that Mouserella knows her grandmother will treasure. Using colored notebook paper as stationery, Mouserella often reflects the paper color in her crayon and pencil illustrations, adding a bit of order to her flowing missive. The final photo, a self-portrait of a kiss for grandma, lets the reader know just how much she loves her grandmother.

Teachers will love showing this book to their students in writing classrooms as it is a perfect answer to the “I don’t have anything to write about” problem. Grandparents who long for a letter from their grandchild will secretly tuck this under the pillow, a not-so-subtle hint. Any grandmouse would love a letter like this—and many children will be inspired to write letters after reading and rereading this one. If I got a letter like this from my niece, I would certainly save it in a special place.

Imagine that you’re a chicken who lives in a picture book, and your book is almost finished, but not quite.

That’s the lively recipe for disaster in Deborah Freedman’s clever new picture book, Blue Chicken. The stage is set on the first pages: “The chickens are white, their coop is brown . . . and this day is perfect for painting the barn.”

One chicken does what any curious chicken (or child) would do: He decides to help. Freedman’s illustrations are full of fun as the helpful chicken climbs on top of a pot of blue paint and peers over the rim. On the next page, the pot overturns, sending blue paint everywhere. The paint explosion grows, seeming to spill off each page. Young readers will adore watching the white chicken turn blue, and seeing a yellow cat and yellow chicks frolic in the mess, splashing amidst the chaos. Soon, a red wheelbarrow and a cow are also covered in blue.

The entire barnyard begins to blame the curious chicken, who succinctly says, “Sincerely sorry.” Spying a jar filled with water and paintbrushes, he decides to try to undo his mess. Of course, much more splattering fun ensues, but the water does the trick, turning everything back as it was, leaving the sky a perfect shade of pale blue. Indeed, the chicken has helped!

Freedman’s spare text is the perfect accompaniment for this ruckus, making it a book that a wide range of young readers will pore over time and time again, taking in the humor and paint-splattered fun on every page.

In an artful accompaniment throughout the book, readers catch glimpses of the artist who is creating this picture book. She happens to be painting her own backyard barn. Meanwhile, our roving chicken has also gotten into a new pot of barnyard red paint. . . .

While the artist is away, the chickens will indeed play, and Deborah Freedman has captured their antics in this book overflowing with joyful fun.