This sweet gem of a book invites the reader to take a contemplative journey through the seasons of the year by reflecting on one haiku for each month…and one accompanying, gentle and beautiful watercolor.  I, personally, felt the world actually slowing down from the race-a-day world, as I read and pondered the mental and visual images.  Being in nature has that same effect on me, so I was not surprised how the haiku, which is almost always about the natural world, transformed my experience.  The book opens with winter’s frost laden window panes…

“Each window pane’s a

masterpiece, personally

signed:  Your Friend, Jack Frost”

Then comes the wily robin, the dandelions, the tadpoles, and so on until we come full circle, and ” Lawns call a truce with mowers and slip beneath their white blankets to sleep.”  An explanation of haiku, The Cycle of Life, and seasonal descriptions are included in the back matter.  This book would be an obvious segue into the students’ composing their own seasonal, nature haikus.