Spring is a highly symbolic time of year. Everything is shaking off the weight of snow, cold and quiet to bud, leaf and grow again. In children's books, Spring is often connected to the holiday that occurs during this season: Easter. Also Spring can be evoked to echo themes of change, renewal and the return of hope. Finally, Spring can represent a time to clean and the way this affects the animal characters or people involved as one tosses out the old and brings in the new.
PIcture Books Easter
Two picture books for children by the famous writer, Charlotte Zolotow, describe this Spring holiday in non-religious terms. The Bunny who Found Easter (Parnassus Press 1959) depicts the quest of a rabbit to find others like itself. It hops through the seasons, lonely and wondering where it will find Easter, when one day: "It smelled of greenness and warm soft sunlight." Shortly after he finds another bunny and they have a Springtime family together to celebrate the holiday.
In Over and Over (Harper Collins 1957,1985) a little girl is full of questions about all the seasons and holidays of the year. Her mother patiently tells her what comes next and, after Valentines' Day, it's Easter. The girl wakes to "a big basket full of shiny green paper grass and a big chocolate egg with white icing on it." She's very excited and feels connected to Spring through this holiday of chicks and rabbits.
The illustrations by Garth Williams are bright and lush, well representing this time of year.
Renewal
Spring is also evoked in children's books to represent the theme of new chances and a changed life.
In Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig (Aladdin Paperbacks 1959, 1997), a little donkey likes collecting rocks. One day, he finds a stone that is magic. It transforms the weather and fulfills other wishes for Sylvester. However, when the donkey runs into a lion, he panics and wishes he were a stone. Once he has become a rock he cannot move. The seasons pass over him and his parents are frantic with worry.
As the year goes by: "the earth warmed up in the spring sun and things budded." Sylvester's parents decide to go on a picnic to ease their grief. Luckily, they picnic on the very rock that is their son, his father finds the stone and wishes to see his son again. It comes true, as happily as Spring returning.
Cleaning
Spring is a wonderful time to organize, tidy up, give things away that are no longer used and obtain new items. Sometimes, though, spring cleaning can turn one's comfortable world upside down and cause trouble. Such is the case for Small Pig, the main character in the book by Arnold Lobel (I Can Read Book, Harper & Row, 1969). The farmer's wife decides one fine day to clean her house. She vacuums everything, including the pigpen with all its mud. Then she washes the pig.
Small Pig is so upset at this change in events that he runs away to find his lost mud puddle. He searches through swamps and junk yards and eventually ends up sinking into the "good, soft mud" of a recently poured sidewalk. Of course, he gets stuck. The farmer and his wife go looking for their pig, get the firefighters to break him out and take him home. The spring rains soon bring another mud puddle and Small Pig is content once again. Spring cleaning is over.
Catherine Owen - Catherine Owen, MA 2001, has published ten award winning books of poetry/prose. Her writing is lyrical, well-researched and fully ...
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