Say It!

I think we have been having one of the most golden, beautiful Autumns this year.

Say It!

Charlotte Zolotow

pictures by James Stevenson 1980

Absolutely lovely book about Autumn, the beauty and magic of nature and the love a mother has for her daughter.  Charlotte Zolotow is a premier children's author.  So many of her books are just beautifully written, simple but full of deep emotion.  In this one a mother and daughter take a meandering walk through an Autumn filled world.  The daughter keeps emploring the mother to "Say it!" but while the mother rhapsodizes about the nature around them... 

"It's magic," said her mother.  "It's a golden, shining, spendiferous day!"

It's not what the daughter is wanting to hear.  As they make their way back to the house, where their father has made a cozy fire for them to return to, the mother finally says what the daughter has been waiting for all along.  If this book doesn't end with you scooping up your child and hugging them, I don't know what will!

Although I like James Stevenson, he would not have been my first choice as illustrator for this book.  Yet somehow his loose almost messy illustrations have a beauty I wasn't expecting and fit perfectly.