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David Ezra Stein

PUFFIN BOOKS
 PUFFIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
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For my mother,
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a bear of great heart
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and an exceptional human being.
Registered Offices: Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England
First published in the United States of America by G. P. Putnam’s Sons, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2007
Published by Puffin Books, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2009
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Copyright © David Ezra Stein, 2007 • All rights reserved
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS EDITION AS FOLLOWS:
Stein, David Ezra. • Leaves / David Ezra Stein. • p. cm. • Summary: A curious bear observes how leaves change throughout the seasons.
ISBN: 978-0-399-24636-4 (hc) • [1. Bears—Fiction. 2. Leaves—Fiction. 3. Seasons—Fiction.] I. Title. • PZ7.S8179Le 2007 [E]—dc22 2006024753
Puffin Books ISBN 978-0-14-241428-6
Manufactured in China
Design by Gunta Alexander. • Text set in Green. • The art was created with bamboo pen and watercolors.
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out,
or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar
condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.
It was his first year.
Everything was going well
until the first leaf fell. “Are you okay?” he wondered.
Then . . . a red one fell, all over his island, the leaves
a yellow one fell, were falling.
 He tried to catch them but it was not the same.
and put them back on . . .
 He sat beneath a tree But he grew sleepy,
and watched them go, all around. and so . . .
he found a hole and filled it with leaves,
and went to sleep, just as the wind began to blow.
Winter came.
He slept, snug in the ground, while the snow piled thick.
In the spring, with wide eyes, he woke.
He felt the sun and saw the little buds on the bare arms of the trees
and the tiny leaves that had begun to unfold. “Welcome!” he cried.
And, he thought, the leaves welcomed him.