Spring doesn't get any springier than three pink-eared kittens staring up at blossoming branches, a robin and bee--all artfully composed on the blue-sky cover of When Spring Comes, by Newbery Honor author Kevin Henkes (Olive's Ocean; The Year of Billy Miller) and illustrator Laura Dronzek (Birds; White Is for Blueberry; Moonlight).
Henkes, who won a 2016 Caldecott Honor for Waiting, has anticipation on his mind these days. Here, young readers are assured that, if they just wait, winter's bleakness will leap to life. Two leafless trees soldier on in the snow, kept company by two red cardinals: "Before Spring comes,/ the trees look like/ black sticks against the sky." "But if you wait,/ Spring will bring/ leaves and blossoms." Other wonders surface "if you wait." A snowman melts in a step-by-step progression of spot illustrations; grass turns from brown to green, as witnessed by a mouse; "an egg will become a bird." As is only natural, a tiny bit of rainy-season exasperation creeps into the soothing narrator's voice: "Spring comes with sun/ and it comes with rain./ And more rain/ and more rain." Fret not, summer's just around the corner.
Dronzek's appealing paintings, in creamy, textured acrylics with saturated colors and thick dark lines, testify to the almost explosive nature of spring. But her visual stories are mostly quiet: a seed, complete with sprout and underground root, pushes up to bloom. A girl waters white-flowered plants in her garden; turn the page, and the same plants are loaded up with strawberries. When Spring Comes is a sweet, playful nod to new beginnings. --Karin Snelson, children's & YA editor, Shelf Awareness