Winter Is Coming by Tony Johnston, illustrated by Jim LaMarcheIf you're looking for a book to read to encourage quiet contemplation of nature, look no farther. In the book, a girl waits and watches outside with her sketchbook and is rewarded with glimpses of animals preparing preparing for winter. Time passes as the pages turn and we see fall (September) turn slowly to winter.
Immediately after reading it, my girls wanted to make a place outside where they could just sit and watch the birds and animals. We have sketchbooks in which the children grudgingly draw when I insist they must before having a snack on our nature walks. Drawing and the sketchbook are never mentioned in the text, but the girl carries them everywhere and sketches appear in her hand. A book like this is more likely to encourage drawing in nature than one that specifically directs attention to the activity. She doesn't draw because she should or she must but because she loves the world in which she lives.
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