In nineteenth-century Concord, Massachusetts, seven-year-old Louisa May Alcott joins other local children on the varied excursions led by teacher and naturalist Henry David Thoreau, and is inspired to write her first poem.

I Begin with Spring weaves natural history around Thoreau's life and times in a richly illustrated field notebook format that can be opened anywhere and invites browsing on every page. Beginning each season with quotes from Thoreau's schoolboy essay about the changing seasons, Early Bloomer follows him through the fields and woods of Concord, the joys and challenges of growing up, his experiment with simple living on Walden Pond, and his participation...