2019 to 2024 | Our family, growing and learning with these books
James and Lucy Catchpole
Autumn! And winter, and spring, and summer. The seasons can be befuddling for young children – life is an ever-present now. Time is mysterious, with a year stretching out seemingly endlessly from birthday to birthday. The seasons are at least tangible for children – they can see, feel and taste them. But just when they think they’ve got a grip on how life works – you go to bed when it’s dark, get up when it’s light – the season shifts, and they have to relearn it all over again. (Bed in Summer, Robert Louis Stevenson’s poem, shows the children of 1885 were just as bewildered!)
Where time can be murky, children have a drive to understand the seasons. To understand why they’re suddenly going to bed in the sunlight – and when Halloween, or Christmas, will come.
These Seasons in the Wild books – now complete, as Autumn Feast joins the other three – are perfect for this. A mix of fiction by Sean Taylor, which keeps children interested, and strong non-fiction content (from ecologist Alex Morss) for learning. For teachers, I’d say these picture books are ideal for seasonal projects for ages 4 to 7 – especially Early Years and Key Stage One.
Speaking personally, one of the loveliest thing about having our own children’s literary agency is the overlap between the business and our daughters. We photographed them with each of these books as they came out, and looking at the photos side by side makes me sentimental. (If you’d like to see our original Instagram posts about each book, they’re at the bottom of the page.) Here’s James with some more about this series.
Tales from children’s publishing
From James Catchpole – Sean Taylor’s agent
Picture books are usually the meeting of two kinds of creative minds: the verbal and the visual; words and pictures (with the exception of author-illustrator books - where there's only one.) But this series is all the richer for three minds meeting: the verbal, the visual and the scientific. Alex Morss is a writer in her own right, but an ecologist first - and a neighbour of our Sean Taylor, a storyteller. They decided to write a children's book together. And now, there are four.
In each of these books, a child or children explore the outdoors with a parent or grandparent who can bring the natural world to life in their imaginations. They know the clearing where a dormouse hibernates, that a fox has her cubs under the shed, that dragonflies are hunting down by the stream, that a badger has been nibbling the windfall apples in the park.
Alex clearly is that parent. She takes readers through how plants and animals adapt to each season, in illustrated appendices at the end of each book. Sean turns each of these little journeys into a story that feels true, with characters who come alive on the page. And the brilliant Cinyee Chiu clothes every scene with her radiant palette and delicate line.
Back to our family - Winter Sleep: A Hibernation Story began the cycle five years ago, when Viola wasn't yet one.
She and Mainie were two and six just like the girls in Busy Spring: Nature Wakes Up, when that came out and I dug them a pond.
By the time of Wild Summer: Life in the Heat, we had a wonderful plague of frogs in our tiny garden. (Their great-great-great grandchildren are still with us!)
Now, with Autumn Feast: Nature's Harvest, Mainie's about to be ten years old.
The seasons keep on turning.
~ James Catchpole
Sean Taylor is represented by us at The Catchpole Agency.
The Seasons in the Wild books are perfect for teaching seasonal projects for ages 4 to 7 (especially for Early Years and Key Stage One). The fictional story keeps children’s interest, while the strong non-fiction element provides content for learning.
If you’d like to buy any of these books using our affiliate links – which is always lovely – there are links to Blackwell’s just below. (Postage all over the world – the US, Canada, India etc – included in the price.)
Bed in Summer, by Robert Louis Stevenson -1885
In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.
I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people's feet
Still going past me in the street.
And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?
Our original Instagram posts – from 2019, 2021 and 2022
[Image descriptions:
- Text reads: ‘Seasons in the Wild – our family – growing with these books’. In polaroid-style frames are our publication day photos of our daughters with these books, from 2019, 2021, 2022 and now 2024. Full image description on each individual photo below.
- Inside pages from Busy Spring – the picture book is open in the garden. Pages show an illustration by Cinyee Chiu of a child of East Asian appearance. who stands with her father and small sister near a pond filled with wildlife.
- A baby sleeps next to Winter Sleep – a picture book by Sean Taylor and Alex Morss, illustrated by Cinyee Chiu. The baby wears rabbit ears. There are fabric autumn leaves strewn around. Labelled ‘Viola 2019’. The photo is on a distressed wooden background – as are the following three.
- A toddler sits by a small pond, her hand outstretched – next to Busy Spring, a picture book. Labelled ‘Viola 2021’
- Viola – now 3yo with light brownish blondish hair – is sitting in our garden holding a copy of Wild Summer. She’s wearing gold velvet fairy wings. It’s June – there are foxgloves & roses. Her older sister’s behind in a matching dress. Labelled ‘Viola & Mainie 2022’
- Mainie – age 9 – holds a copy of Autumn Feast: Nature’s Harvest in front of her face. It’s a beautiful illustrated picture book with lush, rich autumn colours – two children play in fallen leaves on the cover. Mainie’s wearing a russet-red dress, and mustard coloured beret. Labelled ‘Mainie 2024’.]
The Catchpoles 