I Begin with Spring

A JUNIOR LIBRARY GUILD SELECTION

How do we live well, for ourselves and our world, in this time of social injustice and climate change? Begin now, where you are, in spring or any season. That is the message Henry David Thoreau sends from his time almost two centuries ago.

“A marvelous survey of a perennially relevant historical figure. Exemplifies children’s narrative nonfiction at the height of its powers.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Engaging and inspiring.” —School Library Journal (starred review)

“A richly detailed field guide to Thoreau.” —Publishers Weekly

“An excellent introduction to Thoreau and the turbulent times in which he lived.” —The Horn Book (starred review)

“Playful, engaging. A must read!” —Elizabeth Bird, A Fuse #8 Production

“Follows the seasons of the year and the seasons of Thoreau’s life to show the deep interconnectedness of the human and natural worlds.” —Jeffrey S. Cramer, editor of The Portable Thoreau

“Gracefully explores how Thoreau’s demand for social justice in his time can inform the drive for environmental justice and climate action in ours.” —Theresa Crimmins, director, USA National Phenology Network

I Begin with Spring weaves natural history around Thoreau’s life and times in a richly illustrated field notebook format that can be opened anywhere and invites browsing on every page. Beginning each season with quotes from Thoreau’s schoolboy essay about the changing seasons, Early Bloomer follows him through the fields and woods of Concord, the joys and challenges of growing up, his experiment with simple living on Walden Pond, and his participation in the abolition movement, self-reliance, science, and literature.

The book’s two organizing themes—the chronology of Thoreau’s life and the seasonal cycle beginning with spring—interact seamlessly on every spread, suggesting the correspondence of human seasons with nature’s. Thoreau’s annual records of blooms, bird migrations, and other natural events scroll in a timeline across the page bottoms, and the backmatter includes a summary of how those dates have changed from his day to ours and what that tells us about the science of phenology and climate change.

Megan Baratta’s watercolors are augmented with historical images and reproductions of Thoreau’s own sketches to create a high-interest visual experience. The book includes a foreword from Thoreau scholar Jeffrey Cramer, Curator of Collections for the Walden Woods Project.