Hello Summer by Jo Lindley
Feb. 3rd, 2024 11:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
Discover a world of friendship and adventure where feelings are always welcome!
The sun is shining and the Little Seasons are on their way to the beach. But Summer is feeling hot and bothered. With one setback after another, his emotions are bubbling over.
Luckily Summer’s friends know the perfect way to relax: building a giant sandcastle. The only trouble is, no one has noticed a big wave rolling in …
Perfect for any little reader learning how to manage big emotions.
The sunflowers are growing big and tall on Season Isle, which means it’s time for Spring to hand the weather crown to Summer. Summer wants to spend a day at the beach, but as the group make their way across the island to Sandy Side, all of the fun activities that Summer suggests go wrong. Summer finds it all very frustrating and upsetting but once they get to the beach, they all have a lovely time building a giant sandcastle … until a big wave rolls in and undoes all their hard work and Summer finds that he can’t just hold his anger and disappointment in …
The third book in Jo Lindley’s self-illustrated picture book series is a charming look at the fun things that you can do in the summer but also how to handle it when you feel angry and everything gets on top of you because things keep going wrong. I enjoyed Lindley’s illustrations and the friendship of the four Little Seasons really comes through such that I’d be happy to read the other three books in this series.
I picked this up without having read the previous two books in this series, but you don’t need to in order to follow this. Lindley makes clear that as the seasons change on Season Isle, the four Little Seasons pass the weather crown onto each other so that the one wearing the crown decides what activities they do. I liked that there’s a map of Season Isle at the front so you can see where the various locations are. I also liked the character design for each of the Little Seasons and have to say that I have a particular soft spot for Autumn’s cloak of leaves and Winter’s log red scarf.
This book is all about Summer and how he struggles to contain his feelings of upset and frustration as his planned events go wrong. I particularly enjoyed how Lindley gets across Summer’s feelings as he finds himself getting overwhelmed and the illustrations work particularly well to show how red he gets in the face as his behaviour becomes destructive.
I was a bit disappointed that the way his friends get him to control his anger is through counting to three. I’m not saying that it doesn’t work at all, but it would have been nice to have had some other suggestions, e.g. focusing on breathing, thinking about the things that are going right - although there’s nothing to stop grown up readers who are helping young readers with this book from using the book as a way to talk about that.
That said, this is a really charming book and it will help young readers to think about their anger and frustration and how they deal with it, together with fun activities that they can do during the summer. As a result, I’d be very happy to read the other 3 books in this series.
The Verdict:
The third book in Jo Lindley’s self-illustrated picture book series is a charming look at the fun things that you can do in the summer but also how to handle it when you feel angry and everything gets on top of you because things keep going wrong. I enjoyed Lindley’s illustrations and the friendship of the four Little Seasons really comes through such that I’d be happy to read the other three books in this series.
HELLO SUMMER was released in the United Kingdom on 8th June 2023. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.
The sun is shining and the Little Seasons are on their way to the beach. But Summer is feeling hot and bothered. With one setback after another, his emotions are bubbling over.
Luckily Summer’s friends know the perfect way to relax: building a giant sandcastle. The only trouble is, no one has noticed a big wave rolling in …
The sunflowers are growing big and tall on Season Isle, which means it’s time for Spring to hand the weather crown to Summer. Summer wants to spend a day at the beach, but as the group make their way across the island to Sandy Side, all of the fun activities that Summer suggests go wrong. Summer finds it all very frustrating and upsetting but once they get to the beach, they all have a lovely time building a giant sandcastle … until a big wave rolls in and undoes all their hard work and Summer finds that he can’t just hold his anger and disappointment in …
The third book in Jo Lindley’s self-illustrated picture book series is a charming look at the fun things that you can do in the summer but also how to handle it when you feel angry and everything gets on top of you because things keep going wrong. I enjoyed Lindley’s illustrations and the friendship of the four Little Seasons really comes through such that I’d be happy to read the other three books in this series.
I picked this up without having read the previous two books in this series, but you don’t need to in order to follow this. Lindley makes clear that as the seasons change on Season Isle, the four Little Seasons pass the weather crown onto each other so that the one wearing the crown decides what activities they do. I liked that there’s a map of Season Isle at the front so you can see where the various locations are. I also liked the character design for each of the Little Seasons and have to say that I have a particular soft spot for Autumn’s cloak of leaves and Winter’s log red scarf.
This book is all about Summer and how he struggles to contain his feelings of upset and frustration as his planned events go wrong. I particularly enjoyed how Lindley gets across Summer’s feelings as he finds himself getting overwhelmed and the illustrations work particularly well to show how red he gets in the face as his behaviour becomes destructive.
I was a bit disappointed that the way his friends get him to control his anger is through counting to three. I’m not saying that it doesn’t work at all, but it would have been nice to have had some other suggestions, e.g. focusing on breathing, thinking about the things that are going right - although there’s nothing to stop grown up readers who are helping young readers with this book from using the book as a way to talk about that.
That said, this is a really charming book and it will help young readers to think about their anger and frustration and how they deal with it, together with fun activities that they can do during the summer. As a result, I’d be very happy to read the other 3 books in this series.
The Verdict:
The third book in Jo Lindley’s self-illustrated picture book series is a charming look at the fun things that you can do in the summer but also how to handle it when you feel angry and everything gets on top of you because things keep going wrong. I enjoyed Lindley’s illustrations and the friendship of the four Little Seasons really comes through such that I’d be happy to read the other three books in this series.
HELLO SUMMER was released in the United Kingdom on 8th June 2023. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.
