Book Review: Circle of Seasons By Gerda Muller

Happy October everyone! While some are already whipping out the Halloween decorations with spooky creatures, carved pumpkins, spider webs and more; I plan on focusing a little more on fall. We’ll look at some great monstery type books as the end of the month nears.

For today though, I’m going to do something a little different with a book review and only focus on a portion of the book. I discovered this lovely little creation fairly recently and found the fall portion to be especially perfect for sharing. The rest of the book is excellent too, I promise, but let’s give fall its full due. Maybe sometime we’ll “circle” back for the others. So here we have a few pieces of the fall section from Circle of Seasons by Gerda Muller, 1995.

The book opens with a short recap about how the seasons form a nice circle around the whole year. From the warm days of spring bringing frisky baby animals and green everything, through the long hot summer days, into harvest and baskets of plenty, and finally ending with the frostiness of winter and the joys of snow. It then progresses through these seasons in that order, beginning with spring. Each one has a quite lovely title page of sorts that really feels like that time of year. So let’s skip over the two warm seasons and focus on our favorite, especially for the first day of October.

I love that starting page. The question: “You know it’s fall when…” just gets my mind whirling with all the many details that I love and look for to signal to me that it truly is fall. With the turn of the page there is a marvelous wordless spread showing the first hints of fall.

Every season in the book actually has two wordless spreads, one immediately after that title page showing the very first tastes of that season, and the other a couple of pages later showing the season in full bloom. The details of this first fall spread are so perfect. The leaves are just starting to change, the apples are ready and being picked, the children are wearing slightly warmer clothes, and the girl is tasting an autumn apple. I long to just sit and escape into the moment with them.

A couple more pages accompany the wordless spreads and they show more pieces of fall and explanatory text that is sweet and spare, but full and thought-provoking. Fall contains school opening, apples ripening, cold rain pouring down occasionally, as well as the signature leaves changing and my favorite idea: collecting pieces of the changes and making things from them!

Books about the four seasons are quite plentiful and I always have a difficult time deciding when to post them. Each piece is lovely to relish during its appropriate time. I hope you don’t mind seeing only the autumn portion of this one. I think it fitting and it gives you a nice taste of what the other seasons would hold by way of description.

I am new to Gerda Muller‘s work and I really quite adore it. The illustrations are somewhat loose but also packed with details. It is an interesting balance to create and quite a treat to experience. Although I cannot find a website for her or much information online, the jacket-flap of this book mentions that she has published many children’s books in the U.S. and abroad. She is originally from Holland and, at least in 1995, lives in Paris. I hope to find more of her work and see how her style develops and changes.

Wishing you many great fall moments on this first of October and many pleasant books to bring in the season too!