CALL ME CLICHÉD, but autumn is one of my favorite times of year.

On a physical level, I can pull out my cozy sweaters and boots and be consistently warm, and on a spiritual one, I can kick leaves with my husband and enjoy the breeze while walking the dogs.

Somehow picture book authors successfully capture all of the wonderful elements of this beautiful season of change.

"Ska-tat" by Kimberly Knutson reads like jazz, incorporating the sounds of the season, as well as the sheer joy of playing in the leaves. The recurring refrain of "Krish-krash! Ka-rak! Sha-shoo! Ska-tat!" accompanies three children as they throw big handfuls of leaves into the air, jump into deep mountains of them and crunch them underfoot.

Although not poetry, the story has a delightful rhythm.

"We jump through the twig-snappy piles and crunch up a smell like spicy toast while the acorns roll underfoot."

It makes you want to walk in the woods, doesn't it?

Between the onomatopoeia and the vivid imagery, this book can be enjoyed without even looking at the pictures. However, the wonderful collage illustrations use actual fall leaves, and are worth poring over.

In "Leaves" by David Ezra Stein, it was the bear's first year. "Everything was going well until the first leaf fell."

That was troublesome. He examined it closely, first from his belly and then from his hand. Soon leaves were falling all over the island.

"He tried to catch them and put them back on but it was not the same."

That text accompanies a delightful illustration of an exasperated-looking bear sitting beneath a stark tree with leaves stabbed on its branches.

Readers will agree with bear, it's definitely not the same!

Soon he is sleepy and, finding a hole, fills it with leaves and falls asleep "just as the wind began to blow."

Awaking in the spring, he welcomes "the little buds on the bare arms of the trees" and believes they welcome him, too. Stein's soft watercolors, colors blurring over the edges of the pen-drawn borders, are a lovely accompaniment to this gentle story.