Gardens as Main Characters: Some Favorite Picture Books

by Guest Writer Mary Bauer
Many have loved The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (F.A.Stokes, 1911) and wonder where else to find the garden as a main character in children’s lit. I’ll start with a few favorite picture books that I use over and over with children (up to about 7 years) and adults. Yes, adults love them!

The Gardener by Sarah Stewart. Pictures by David Small. (Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1997)

Empty window boxes. Empty windows boxes on the sunny side of a rundown bakery. What could be more exciting to a gardener transported unexpectedly to the big city?

Lydia Grace Finch has to leave home to live with her uncle when her papa loses his job and no one asks her mama to make dresses anymore.

For birthdays and holidays, her grandma, mama, and papa send Lydia Grace seed catalogs and large envelopes of seeds and dirt, bulbs and baby plants. She finds a secret place and plans a great surprise for her uncle who never smiles. No yet, anyway.

Sarah Stewart, writer in the husband and wife team, tells Lydia Grace’s story through her letters home. David Small won a Caldecott Honor Award for his realistic illustrations that express the feelings of a girl in the United States in what seems to be the 30’s who is challenged to make a place for herself in a bleak new-to-her city.  I get chills every time I read this book aloud to children or adults.

The Gardener is at the top of my list of favorite picture books. I gave it to my sister, a Baltimore gardener, for her 50^th birthday.

Munch! Muncha! Muncha! by Candace Fleming. Illustrations by G. Brian Karas. (An Anne Schwartz Book/Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2002)

Mr. McGreely, a close relative I’m sure of Mr. McGregor, finally plants a city garden. The bunnies, soon referred to as flop-ears, puff-tails, and twitch-whiskers, are thrilled. Mr. McGreely is not happy. He digs and hammers and nails walls and fences and moats all around. But every night, “muncha muncha muncha” three bunnies feast until . . . .

Find the solution by following the bunny trails in G. Brian Karas’ lively and humorous illustrations.

Whose Garden Is It? by Mary Ann Hoberman. Illustrations by Jane Dyer. (Gulliver Books/Harcourt, Inc., 2004)

Mrs. McGee wonders “Whose garden is this?” as she pushes a toddler in a stroller through a lush watercolor garden drawn by Jane Dyer. The gardener is sure it is his, just as sure as the rabbit that nibbles it, the worm that tills it, the honeybee and butterfly that pollinate it, and all the other animals that contribute to its growth. Plants claim it, as do weeds and trees and sun and soil, and of course the seed. My favorite illustration is of woman and child, ears to the ground, listening. And the seed whispers, “’It is mine.’”  Whose garden is it?” Mrs. McGee continues to ponder as she strolls away.

Mary Ann Hoberman was Highly Commended by the 2005 Charlotte Zolotow Award Committee for her writing in Whose Garden Is It?

One Green Apple by Eve Bunting. Illustrations by Ted. Lewin. (Clarion Books, 2006) is a relatively new title, published in 2006, not quite a favorite but growing on me.

“It’s not that I am stupid. It is just that I am lost in this new place.”

Farah feels different – English is not her first language. A dupatta covers her head and shoulders. Her father has told her “. .. we are not always liked here. ‘Our home Country and our new one have had difficulties . . . [b]ut it will be good for us here in time.’”

On a class trip to an apple orchard, Farah picks one green apple to contribute to the cider making. One boy and a girl tell her their names. Hay tickles her arms. The boy belches and everyone laughs. She knows laughter; it is the words that are strange. Then Farah takes a deep breath and says her “first outside-myself word” in English. Eve Bunting was Highly Commended by the 2007 Charlotte Zolotow Award Committee for her writing in One Green Apple.

So that’s it for now. I’m a children’s librarian, no longer working in libraries, who served on the Newbery Award Committee ages ago in 1991, and now teach A Workshop for Adults who Want to Write Picture Books for Young Children at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, MD and elsewhere.  I also lead moms and toddlers in story and song at The Wise Willow Children’s Book and Toy Shop in Annapolis, MD.  I got to know Susan decades age at the Washington Ethical Society and have recently become a fan of GardenRant.

Comments

[Peter Hoh]

Another excuse for a trip to the bookstore. Yay!

One of my favorite children's books is All The Places to Love, by Patricia MacLachlan, illustrated by Michael Wimmer. Search for it on Amazon and be sure to look at the illustrations.

I concede that it's not really about a garden, unless you broaden the term to encompass a farmstead. Still, it's a delightful book about a deep connection to the land. And to me, that's what gardening is all about.

[Pam/Digging]

Thanks, Mary. I'll look for those. "The Secret Garden" is already a favorite of mine.

I also like "A Child’s Calendar: Poems by John Updike," illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman, which beautifully captures seasonal changes in the garden and in nature. Also, for younger kids, "This Is Your Garden," by Maggie Smith---a kind of how-to book with colorful, fun illustrations about starting your own garden and the joy you get from it.

[Pam J.]

Thanks for the lovely post Mary. It makes me nostalgic for the days when I read similar books to my kids--sometimes over and over and over again. I'm convinced that the images children see in those early years are important ones throughout their lives. This is a bit off topic, but your post reminds me of how powerful the outdoor images are in Willa Cather's novels about immigrants and farms. Cather is one of my all-time favorites, especially for scenes such as this one from O Pioneers:
"She led them to the northwest corner of the orchard, sheltered on one side by a thick mulberry hedge and bordered on the other by a wheatfield, just beginning to yellow. In this corner the ground dipped a little, and the blue-grass, which the weeds had driven out in the upper part of the orchard, grew thick and luxuriant. Wild roses were flaming in the tufts of bunchgrass along the fence. Under a white mulberry tree there was an old wagon-seat. Beside it lay a book and a workbasket."

I want to roll around in that blue-grass!

And finally, one more off-topic comment about books. On the recommendation of someone who commented on a recent Garden Rant post, I read T.C. Boyle's "The Tortilla Curtain." Boyle is another of my all-time favs and although I owned a copy of the book I hadn't read it yet. I finished it on Saturday and am still fretting over the fate of the characters. It's a book that won't fade soon from my memory, so here's a thanks to the person who suggested it!

[Michele Owens]

Lovely post, Mary. Every time I read "The Gardener" to my kids, I'm so moved by it, I wind up sniffling through the ending--and getting some puzzling glances from them. What is wrong with Mom?

[Martha]

Love the suggestions! Esp. as I am a gardener mama with a toddler... What about "Growing Vegetable Soup"?

http://www.amazon.com/Growing-Vegetable-Soup-Lois-Ehlert/dp/0152050558/ref=sr_1_8/002-9741743-7398439?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1173369100&sr=1-8

[Matt Cohen]

I have a book Zen Of Watering Your Garden, available only on Amazon that has a 145 full color pictures juxtaposed to 70 aphorisms, poems and sayings. It is an easy read but as you will see the written portions have multi level meanings. It is a great winter read for most of the country. There are 20 photographic contributors from all over the world. More information and pictures are at the domain. I would be happy to send one for your review.