National Trust: When Summer Comes

By Author / Illustrator

Ekaterina Trukhan

Genre

Environment & Nature

Publisher

Nosy Crow

ISBN

9781805130819

Format

Hardback

Published

08-05-2025

Synopsis

Second in a series of four sweet and simple stories about a young child's joyful discovery of nature through the seasons.

When summer comes, the sun is shining and the bees and butterflies are busy in the flowers. Ducks and deer, frogs, fish and a friendly mole, watering vegetables with Mum and making a picnic with Dad before watching the sunset together - there is so much to see and do as nature enjoys the warm summer months. And one little girl is loving every magical moment!

Fall in love with the wonder of summer in this beautiful first picture book.

Also in the series: When Spring Comes

Reviews

Lucy

A book filled with simple, bright pictures and lots of summer joy! National Trust: When Summer Comes tells a story of a little girl who is enjoying all of the lovely things that summer brings. Each page has a different thing you can do or explore during summer. It's a great opportunity for young children to take some inspiration of things they could also do when the summer comes.

I like that nature is heavily linked throughout the book to include activities like jumping on stepping stones, growing your own vegetables in the garden and swimming in the lake outside. Hopefully it will encourage young children to enjoy wildlife and the many free or very cheap activities they can enjoy.

The book uses repetition effectively so that each page starts with the same phrase 'when the summer comes'. This will be great to encourage younger readers to be more independent as they will build their confidence, knowing how each page begins.

My little boy has enjoyed listening to the story and spotting familiar objects on each page. He loves animals and being outside so is very enthusiastic about it. His favourite spread is the one about finding bugs and butterflies hiding in the flowers. The pages are filled with bright, colourful pictures of flowers with tiny little bugs which he really enjoys finding.

There's also a page at the back of the book for children to be able to see which things they managed to spot during the story. It's a good opportunity to develop their comprehension skills as they can look back through the book together to see if they can remember where to find them.

Picture book / Reviewed by Lucy Hopkins, teacher