Christine Copeland of Northfield takes a walk in the woods every morning with her dog. Those walks inspired her to begin a series of children’s books, she recalled in a recent interview. The series is called “Seasons in the Forest.”
“Autumn in the Forest” was published in September and was just named a finalist in the Reader’s Choice Book Awards. “Winter in the Forest” will be available in December. Copeland is planning books for spring and summer in the near future.
Copeland described these works as “field guides for three to eight year olds.” She went on to explain, “They’re illustrative, and the language is very lyrical. But they’re really intended to give names to things for children, who I feel are naturally and intrinsically connected to the natural world but don’t always know the names of things.”
She noted that she thinks that learning those names enhances children’s connection with the outdoors.
The books are simply and poetically written and consist in large part of Copeland’s stunning color illustrations of seasonal trends, from bears preparing a spot for hibernation in the fall to a lone doe surveying the white landscape in the winter.
I asked Copeland whether she had always wanted to be an artist and how she decided to create books for children.
“I always wanted to make things,” she replied. “Some of us just like to make things. For example, I love to knit.”
She explained that she had almost abandoned her interest in art when she was in high school and modern art was everywhere. “Then my family moved to Paris for a while,” she smiled. “I was able to study in a studio there. I was looking at everything. You’re so surrounded by the classical art and the impressionists.”
She said that she counted that opportunity “a great privilege.” Her father, who was in the military, was stationed in France, and her mother was French. She went on to study at Cornell University’s School of Architecture, Art and Planning. She worked for years as a commercial illustrator.
She and her husband married “late in life,” she noted. “Before I got married, I wasn’t sure that I would get married, and I knew that I was interested in children. I got a degree in elementary education.”
She did end up getting married and having children. After her children grew up and she retired, she found a way to combine her art education and her youth-oriented education by creating these books.
She was helped by her husband, a lifelong naturalist. “He’s much more knowledgeable than I am so I depend on him,” she stated. Copeland told me that she thinks the audience for these books is “very young children and their parents.” She is also marketing the book to schools and in nature centers; she observed that the Hitchcock Center for the Environment in Amherst had been very encouraging.
She likes to think that her books will encourage children to care about preserving nature and to be more observant of the world around them. “They’re not just about the flora and fauna,” she said of the books. “They’re also about the beautiful and transient changes that take place in our New England forests ... The movement of animals, the preparation. The winter book is about the darkness of winter. They’re big concepts in very simple language.”
The color tones are what jump out in these books. Autumn abounds with oranges and yellows. In contrast, winter is a study in whites, deep blues and grays. “Shadows are long. The sun hangs low,” Copeland writes.
She spoke about her writing process. “I go out and I walk. Initially, I’m just looking and listening,” she said, “and then maybe some phrases will come to me. In the fall, you hear the geese, and I just thought, ‘Fly away, fly away, fly away, geese’... What are the other animals? What are they doing in the fall? What is happening in the fall?”
When Copeland finishes her “Seasons in the Forest” series, she will return to a series of local historical stories she has planned out. The first book in that series, “Have You Seen the Ghost of John,” came out last year.
The “Seasons in the Forest” books are available at the Historic Deerfield Museum Shop and at Federal Street books. They may also be ordered from any bookstore, from Bookshop.org (which gives a portion of sales to local bookstores), and from Copeland’s website, https://www.christinecopelandbooks.com.
Christine Copeland said that she hopes that readers will leave reviews on her website and elsewhere. Her favorite review so far came from a seven-year-old, who told her, “Wow. Those are good drawings.”
Tinky Weisblat is a writer and singer who lives in Hawley. Her latest book is “Pot Luck: Random Acts of Cooking.” Visit her website, tinkycooks.com.