Book Review: Fall Feast

Learn how plants and animals spend fall getting ready for winter in this sweet picture book. Fall Feast: Nature’s Harvest by Sean Taylor and Alex Morss features a family going for a walk on a cool fall day and observing what’s happening in nature.

Morss is an ecologist, journalist and educator, so you can be sure the facts shared in the book are accurate, while Cinyee Chiu’s illustrations are warm and inviting.

The children see birds, squirrels, fungi and nibbled nuts and apples on their walk, and learn from their mama how animals get ready for winter (and fungi and bugs help nature along by devouring a dead tree). They gather fallen apples and take them home to mom, who makes a fall treat so they can have their own feast together.

After the story, the book talks about why fall happens (because of the tilt of the earth away from the sun) and explores in more detail what’s happening with plants and animals this time of year. Some plants drop their leaves, for example, while others make berries or seed pods to spread their seeds around for next year.

Some animals hibernate or migrate, while others store up food, make a warmer winter shelter or grow thicker fur to keep warm.

It also covers insects, fungi and other decomposers, and gives tips for helping out the plants and animals in the fall. (I’d have liked a recipe for what they call flapjacks in the book but looks more like a cake to me, but that’s maybe just me.)

This book is the fourth in a series of books about nature and the seasons, which also includes Winter Sleep, Busy Spring, and Wild Summer. If you like the style and the story you might want to pick up all four so you have the complete story of the year for your family or classroom to share.

About the book: 32 pages, hardcover, published 2024 by Happy Yak. Suggested retail price $19.99.

Gabon is a country in central Africa on the Equator, which is bordered by Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon and the Republic of the Congo, as well as the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Guinea. Let’s learn more.

Gabon Facts

Gabon has an area of 100,000 square miles, or 270,000 square kilometers and is home to about 2.3 million people. The capital and largest city is Libreville. Almost 90 percent of the land of Gabon is forest, and the nation has huge biodiversity.

The original inhabitants of Gabon were Bambenga, and the Kingdom of Orungu was established there in the 1700s, and France colonized the area in the later 19th century. Gabon gained its independence in 1960.

The official language is French and about 95 percent of the population is part of the Bantu ethnic groups. The majority of people are Christian.

Gabon comes from the Portuguese word gabao, which means hooded cloak. Portuguese explorers in the 1470s used the term to refer to the Komo river estuary, which they said resembled a cloak. Eventually the name spread to cover the whole region.

Gabon is a presidential republic with a legislature, though there have been many disputed elections and, in 2023, a military coup.

Gabon National Symbols

The Gabon flag consists of three horizontal stripes, in green, yellow and blue. The flag was adopted in 1960.

The national anthem is “La Concorde,” and it was written and adopted in 1960 as well.

The coat of arms features a ship on a shield with the same colors as the flag, with three yellow circles in the green section. Above the crest is a large tree, and the crest is flanked by black panthers. The motto, which translated to English is “unity, work, justice,” is below the shield, among the roots of the tree. The slogan that translates to “we shall go forward together” hang around the tree.

I couldn’t find any official national animals or plants, but black panthers are considered a national symbol because of their use on the coat of arms.

Gabon Learning Activities

Did you know black panthers aren’t a distinct species? In Africa they are leopards, but in other areas black panthers are actually cheetahs, bobcats, lynx or other big cats. Learn more about the animals of Gabon at A to Z Animals.

Check out Monts de Cristal, or the Crystal Mountains, home to a large diversity of wildlife (including lots of butterflies) and a large national park. There’s lots of great pictures on that page.

Adventures in a Messy Life has a little Gabon unit study that includes links to some videos, a recipe for African beignets, and notebooking pages available for purchase that you can use for any country in Africa.

Check out this video with interesting facts about Gabon from The African Script.

Find more resources for teaching about Gabon at Teachers Pay Teachers.

Learn more about traditional foods in Gabon from Chef’s Pencil, and check out this recipe for what’s considered the national dish of Gabon, poulet Nyembwe, a chicken dish made with red palm oil (which is what the dish is named for).

Have you read?

Gabon Facts

Gabon National Symbols

Gabon Learning Activities

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