A Year in Nature: A collection of stories for every season

By Author / Illustrator

Sean Taylor, Alex Morss, Cinyee Chiu

Genre

Environment & Nature

Age range(s)

Publisher

Happy Yak

ISBN

9781805703181

Format

Hardback

Published

19-02-2026

Synopsis

Celebrate nature and learn about the seasons in this collection of four heartwarming, fact-filled picture book stories - Busy Spring, Wild Summer, Autumn Feast and Winter Sleep.

Join young children and their families as they explore the outdoors through the changing seasons. Each story is woven with fascinating facts and stunning illustrations, offering a gentle introduction to how plants and animals adapt throughout the year.

Discover the seasons through:

- Busy Spring - Nature Wakes Up: discover how wildlife stirs back to life as days grow longer and warmer.
- Wild Summer - Life in the Heat: explore how plants and animals thrive and cope during the hottest months.
- Autumn Feast - Nature's Harvest: learn how creatures prepare for winter with food stores and seasonal changes.
- Winter Sleep - A Hibernation Story: peek into the secret world of animals resting through the coldest season.

Each story is enriched with clear, accessible science. For example, Busy Spring explains plant growth, pollination and animal life cycles; Wild Summer explores adaptations to heat and drought; Autumn Feast teaches about seed dispersal, fungi and animal preparations for winter; and Winter Sleep explains hibernation and shows how animals survive the cold.

A Year in Nature is an invitation to step outside, notice the wonders of the natural world and take action to protect it - ideal for curious young minds and anyone who wants to nurture a lifelong love of nature.

Illustration from A Year in Nature

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Reviews

Natalie J

A Year in Nature: A Collection of Stories for Each Season is divided into four season specific sections, each containing an illustrated short narrative story and additional fact-based features.

A man and his two young daughters explore the garden in spring as nature awakens and bursts into life; birds are nesting, plants are emerging, and insects are busy. A little girl wishes it could always be summer but on a trek with her grandpa she discovers how dangerous summer can be and why most other living things disagree with her. Two siblings with their two mums visit the park in Autumn and discover nature's harvest including different fungi and apples they take home. They learn how things "burst into death" in Autumn, with the rotting organisms being consumed by things like bacteria into the soil so that new life can grow. In Winter, a boy visits his Grandma and they try to find the glade they enjoyed in the summer, but the landscape looks so different. He learns how life is still there but is hidden, everything has slowed down and is hibernating.

This is a lovely book with rich, colourful, vivid illustrations, engaging stories, and factual snippets of information explaining how the seasons are influenced by the movement of the earth and how a wide variety of living things are affected by and adapt to the changing seasons. It finishes with example of activities the reader can do throughout the year to embrace and help nature.

128 pages / Reviewed by Natalie J McChrystal Plimmer, librarian