Wake Up, It's Spring!

by Lisa Campbell Ernst

One day the earth gets a warm wake-up call from the sun -- it's Spring! Earth tells a little worm, and before long the happy gossip travels far and wide. . . . Lisa Campbell Ernst celebrates the awakening of life that comes with Spring. Her playful words and pictures resonate with the cheeriness that rises with the season.

Genres: Picture Books, Animals, Childrens, Storytime, Family, Nature, Fiction

40 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Lisa Campbell Ernst was born in Bartlesville, Oklahoma in 1957. She received a Bachelor's degree in art from the University of Oklahoma, and then won an internship as a guest editor for Mademoiselle Magazine in New York City. She has written and illustrated over twenty picture books including Stella Louella's Runaway Book, which won the Children's Choice Award in Kansas, and Sam Johnson and the Blue Ribbon Quilt.

Reviews

[Ina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great Storytiime opener for a spring-themed storytime. After a long cold winter, one day the sun warms the earth and tells it to wake up since spring is here...the message gets passed along, from earth to earthworm, to seed, to ladybug...and so on until everyone is awake and dancing in the spring sunshine.

[Celia Buell · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have to say I'm not sure how I feel about Wake Up, It's Spring!. It's very simple and younger or beginning readers will appreciate the repetitive and predictable text.

I'm not a huge fan of some of the scenes or the illustrations. Everything before the house is fun and shows a lot of the signs of spring - sun, earth, worms, seeds, rabbits, bugs. But then we get to the house and the depictions of people and I don't love it. I don't like that the kids just pick up the baby out of the crib and then jump on the bed while holding the baby and screaming about spring. Like, okay. Chill, please.

The illustrations themselves seem almost too simple, and I don't love the way the animals are depicted. The family is, of course, all white (which kind of makes sense for 2005, when the book was published) but I would have liked to see more diversity.

Overall this one wasn't one of my favorites.

*Read for: Children's Book group (Picture Book Club) - March 2023 Holidays Scavenger Hunt - Spring

[Toni Chahine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wake Up, It's Spring! by Lisa Campbell Ernst talks about a process of spring coming to the world. It starts off by the sun waking up the earth, the earth waking up the worm, the worm waking up a seed, etc. all the way to the family enjoying the spring weather along with all the creatures of the earth. This book teaches the concept and process of awakening to spring. I thought it was very cute and interesting especially when learning about spring! I enjoyed it.

[Meredith · Rating 3 out of 5]

The sun warms the earth, setting off a chain reaction of spring awakenings.

One spring morning, the sun comes up, and its warmth wakes up a worm. The worm wakes up a seed. The seed sprouts and wakes up a ladybug. The ladybug flies away and wakes up a rabbit. The rabbit wakes up a bird. The bird flies by a house and wakes up a cat. The cat wakes up the dog. The dog wakes up the baby. The baby wakes up her siblings. The children wake up their parents. Then everyone goes outside in the sunshine to celebrate the arrival of spring.

This story is an example of a cyclical narrative.

When I was a children's librarian, I would always use this book for spring story time programming.

[Liz P · Rating 3 out of 5]

The illustrations are cute and include critters related to spring. I read it to my 4-year-old tonight before bed since it's the first day of spring. Even he commented on the fact that it's a bit short but we still enjoyed it.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice story that celebrates the joy of spring and the way everything wakes up. I read it to groups of two-year olds and their caregivers and it was perhaps a bit long for these particular groups on this particular day (it is spring, after all, and not a great time for sitting).

[Sydney M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wake up its spring
One day after a long winter the earth began to warm. The sun whispered to the earth to wake up it's spring. The earth nudged the worm and said the same thing. The word was spread across the world to inform everyone it was spring.

[Kinley Kaelin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome illustrations! Loved this book and would be good to read when spring is coming!

[Laura McLoughlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Part of a Spring themed story time I attended with the 2 year old. It was a hit!

[Denise · Rating 5 out of 5]

We read this for Story Time at the library today. The kids all loved it!

[Pamela Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute wee seasonal book for toddlers. Wake up everyone spring is here. Great for a read aloud.

[Latrice Pearl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute story about the start of spring

[Terresa Wellborn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book for storytimes -- not too much text, cute pictures, and easily adaptable to use with puppets!

Themes: spring, bunnies
Ages: toddler - 2nd grade
Pub year: 2004

[Anna Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute little story about everything waking up in spring.

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

.

[Rolf · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute, with some memory-reinforcing repetitive phrasing.

[Olivia Clay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect to read to the littles at the library on the first day of Spring!!

[Arminzerella · Rating 3 out of 5]

After a long winter, spring finally returns, gradually waking up the earth and the earthworm and the seed and so on and so forth until everyone is awakened and dancing with joy. A lovely celebration of the season's renewal.

[Alesha Palmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about many animals waking up for the spring season. Like a domino effect each animal is waking up and waking the other animals up. The first one to wake up was the earth. After the earth woke up, the earth woke up the worm, then the worm woke up the seed. On and on this cycle went on till the whole earth was awake.

This story shows the actual domino effect that happens when the seasons change. In reality, the sun is the changing factor that makes the seasons change. So it was interesting that the sun was actually the first thing to wake up the earth.

This story can be used to show children what it means for the seasons to change. It is a wave of occurrences that happen naturally. The story captured the audience with a repetitive phrase allowing the audience to know what is about to happen. The readers will be able to connect words and sound more easily.

The text, as little as it was, was a necessary part of the story as a whole. The illistrations only let the reader understand a minimal amount. The reader of this book would enjoy the bright illustrations and the many different kinds of animals depicted. The illustrator did not used solid colors but a gradation of color in order for the story to seem more realistic.

[Miss Pippi the Librarian · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's Spring! Slowly everyone is warming up and waking up to dance in the sun.

It's a cumulative story where the sun warms the ground and wakes up the worm. After other animals awake to the sunshine, a family wakes up to go outside and dance the day away. It's a quick story to share from little things to big things that keep adding up. I think it would work well for a flannel story, too.

2015 Storytime Theme: Spring
2019 storytime theme: cumulative (winter to spring)
2022 storytime theme: PreK Planters Spring
-- This year we added the ASL signs for wake up.

Reviewed from a library copy.

[Ina · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderfully illustrated book with simple text. Sun wakes the earth with the news that Spring is here - and the word passes from character to character. My story time audience loved that each new character opened one eye at a time, when told to wake up, it's spring. When all the characters are dancing in the warm spring sun, the kids all pointed out the characters. This was a very engaging story time read.

[Caroline · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked how the animals woke up all the other animals when spring arrived but the length became a problem; it could have stopped with the animals but extended into an entire family waking up. Too much length for story time. I did like the illustrations and simple text though.

[Diana · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this one was a no-go for storytime, it was still a cute little story about the earth and all its inhabitants waking up in spring. I passed on this one because I'm in southern California and I wanted to avoid books that talk too much about snow since we don't really get, well, any!

[Tricia · Rating 3 out of 5]

book tells the story of how spring brings life through the worm, ladybug, baby, etc. will try for storytime. cute pictures.

[Rose]

E Ern

[Edna · Rating 1 out of 5]

Illustrations are fine but the text that introduces spring sounds too much like the first chapter of Genesis, "And then there was . . ."

[Megan Ekins · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would read this to a young class in a second and then go outside with music and dance around in the spring!

[Janderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a pretty good story book for spring story time. It gets a little long, but kids have fun pointing out what comes next.

[Teri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun spring story--we happend to read it a week and a half ago during the 70 degree spell we had, and it really did feel like the first true day of spring. :)

[Mollywainio · Rating 3 out of 5]

good to have right at change of season