About the Author

Julie Fogliano has spent her entire life reading children's books. Now she stays up way too late writing her own books while eating cereal. She lives in the Hudson Valley with her husband and their two boys. They make her very tired, but give her lots of good ideas. And Then It's Spring is her first book.

Erin E. Stead first met Julie Fogliano while working together in a New York City bookstore. Today she lives in a 100-year-old barn in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with her husband, Philip, who is an author and illustrator, and with whom she co-created A Sick Day For Amos McGee, winner of the 2011 Caldecott Medal, for Roaring Brook Press. Erin creates her illustrations using woodblock printing techniques and pencil.

Reviews

"Green is what the bespectacled boy in Julie Fogliano's 'And Then It's Spring' eagerly hopes to see as he waits for seeds he has planted to sprout from the brown earth. Did birds eat the seeds? Did bears trample them? In Erin E. Stead's finely drawn illustrations, we see the imagined bears lounging in the seedbeds with a sign that reads: 'Please do not stomp here--there are seeds and they are trying.'" --The Wall Street Journal "This seemingly real-time experience of getting to green is a droll, wistful ode to the stamina behind wanting, will, and perseverance." --School Library Journal, Starred "In an understated and intimate partnership, Fogliano and Stead conjure late winter doldrums and the relief of spring's arrival, well worth the wait." --Publishers Weekly, Starred "This sweet seedling will undoubtedly take root and thrive. " --Kirkus, Starred "Fogliano's poetic yet grounded narrative is reminiscent of Charlotte Zolotow's picture-book texts in its understatement and straightforward, childlike observations...As for the illustrations, there's no sophomore slump for Stead: her second book is even better than her 2011 Caldecott winner, A Sick Day for Amos McGee (rev. 5/10)." --Horn Book Magazine, Starred "A first-time author and the Caldecott Award-winning illustrator of A Sick Day for Amos McGee (2011) team up in this beautiful ode to a patient gardener." --Booklist, Starred "...a humble yet miraculous world..." --BCCB

PreS-Gr 2-"First you have brown.all around you have brown." A boy and his dog wait and wait in the gloom of late winter for the first signs of spring. Blue sweater and red pom-pom hat brighten an otherwise bleak landscape as the boy digs, plants, sows.and waits. Accompanied by his equally anxious pooch, a rabbit, a turtle, and a bird, he looks for some color of the season. "Is that a little green?," he wonders, wielding a magnifying glass to a small mound of dirt. "No, still brown." He also worries.have the birds eaten all the seeds? Has the bears' stomping crushed them? While the young gardener bemoans the fact that the bears can't read his "Please, no stomping" sign, viewers chuckle as one beast stretches and lazily scratches his underarm with the sign while another sits with a flowerpot on his head. A wish for rain works, resulting in a "hopeful, very possible sort of brown." An underground maze shows mice and worms readying the ground while a "greenish hum" fills the air. Then the sun shines brightly as the boy hangs a tire swing and sways patiently. Walking outside the next morning to greet the relentless brown, he is happily surprised-"And now you have green! All around you have green." Erin E. Stead's whimsical wood-block-and-pencil illustrations are gently animated, adding to Julie Fogliano's tender tale (Roaring Brook, 2012). The male narrator's voice reflects the characters' disappointment, hope, and joy when the much anticipated green finally and gloriously appears. An interview with the first time author reveals her Catskill Mountain inspiration and how she came to collaborate with Caldecott-winner Stead. Use to enrich units on spring, plants, or gardening.-Barbara Auerbach, P.S. 217, Brooklyn, NY (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.