How Does It Grow

When your childhood is spent with gardeners, it is easy to become a gardener yourself.  You find yourself scanning perennial, annual, and seed catalogs in the winter.  You plot out your gardens.  You dig, rake, hoe, and plant.  They know you by name at the local nurseries.  You wait, watch, weed, and water, working in partnership with the weather.  After decades, you still marvel at the yield.  You are astonished at the colors and smells of the flowers. You savor the scents and tastes of the vegetables and herbs.

As a gardener, it is easy to believe in miracles because even though you work hard, the results are a beautiful, sometimes unexpected, bounty.  Uncle John's City Garden (Holiday House, May 3, 2022) written by Bernette G. Ford with illustrations by Frank Morrison celebrates the connections created between gardens, family, and food.  This book is based upon truth and wishes.

Everyone called me Li'l Sissy.

She was smaller than her older sister and her older brother.  They were individually shorter than their Uncle John, but if they stretched themselves out head to toe, they were taller than this giant of a man.  This story started with nothing but dirt.  A great area of dirt between tall brick city buildings called the projects.

Each of the siblings picked their own packets of seeds.  Each of the children were assigned their own rows for planting, labeled by their Uncle John.  There were rows for okra, tomatoes, onions, corn, and lima beans.  Uncle John had the rest of the rows.  

Li'l Sissy had a small shovel.  Her sister had a bigger shovel and her brother's shovel was the biggest of the three.  Uncle John made hills with his long-handled shovel and the children dug holes for their seeds in those hills.

Day by day the plants grew, were watered and weeded.  One day a huge thunderstorm raged.  Would the garden survive? It did and the vegetables seemed to have grown overnight.  Each day the children and their uncle harvested their vegetables.  A huge family barbeque showcased the garden treasures.  What do you think happened to all the rest of the vegetables?

As stated in her author's note, Bernette G. Ford based this narrative on visiting her Uncle John's urban garden in Brooklyn, New York during her summers.  This book answers her dream of spending an entire summer working in her uncle's garden.  Readers will appreciate the rhythm established by Bernette G. Ford using the technique of comparing the siblings by height, the seeds they select, the number of rows they plant, the size of their shovel handles, and the size of the garden plants.  As these comparisons unfold, it's almost like they mirror the growth of the garden, inch by inch, and foot by foot.  Here is a passage.

Uncle John showed us how to pick our crops.

He gave us bags to put our vegetables in.  Brother

had a big one for his corn and lima beans.  Sister's

bag was not as big as his.  My bag was little, like me.

We picked a lot of vegetables.  But every day when

we came back, the garden had grown some more.

For gardeners and those who enjoy the "fruits of gardeners' labors", the front, right side, of the matching dust jacket and book case is a sight to behold.  All those vegetables are radiating from the siblings and their uncle like the rays of sun are around Li'l Sissy.  The buildings behind them indicate the urban setting of this remarkable garden.  It is also here we are aware that Li'l Sissy will be the narrator of this story.  

To the left of the spine, on the back, set in a canvas of the rustic red color of the tomatoes is an oval image.  It is taken from the interior of the book.  It is a portion of the picture when Li'l Sissy and her mother are inspecting her okra plants.

The opening and closing endpapers are a rich garden green.  On the title page is a double-page picture of sky, buildings and rows of okra.  We are brought close to the seed packet label with the plants, building and sky as part of the background.  On the publication information page and dedication page, a child is skipping rope on the patch of dirt between the buildings.

Each of the two-page images (and two single-page pictures) by artist Frank Morrison were

created with oil paint and spray paint on illustration board.

There is a strength in the portrayals of all his characters, especially in their faces.  Sometimes Frank Morrison brings us close to a scene or gives us a more panoramic view as when the siblings first visit the garden between the buildings.  The children, even the child passing on a homemade scooter, are small compared to the land spread before them.  He brings us close to the children and their Uncle John several times.  During the storm Li'l Sissy's fear for the garden is depicted realistically as she looks out a window.  Her joy at holding a tomato with two hands because of its size will warm you from the top of your head to the tip of your toes.

One of my many favorite illustrations is a double-page picture.  We are very close to Li'l Sissy, her brother and sister and their Uncle John.  They have just completed the planting of all their seeds.  Uncle John stands behind the children as if enveloping them in a hug.  We see a portion of his face and upper body.  On the left is the brother and on the right is the sister.  Li'l Sissy is in the middle.  Her figure, because she is shorter, only shows the upper portion of her face.  She is wearing her huge straw hat.  Her face is to the left of the gutter but the hat spans on either side of the gutter.  They are all looking toward their accomplishment in anticipation.

This title, Uncle John's City Garden written by Bernette G. Ford with artwork by Frank Morrison, is an ode to a childhood memory and the act of gardening to grow your own food.  It certainly will inspire others to do the same thing.  At the close of the book is a recipe for succotash.  I highly recommend you place a copy of this book on both your personal and professional bookshelves.

To learn more about Bernette G. Ford and her work, you might want to read this article in The Horn Book where she and her husband were interviewed by Roger Sutton two years ago.  One year ago an obituary for Bernette G. Ford was written for Publishers Weekly.  It speaks about her many accomplishments.  To learn more about Frank Morrison and his other work, please visit his website by following the link attached to his name.  Frank Morrison has an account on Instagram.  At the publisher's website, you can download some activity sheets found in an event kit. 

For many gardeners, their creativity has more than one outlet, but they still desire to add color to their world through the planting of flowers.  Celia Planted A Garden: The Story Of Celia Thaxter And Her Island Garden (Candlewick Press, May 17, 2022) written by Phyllis Root and Gary D. Schmidt with illustrations by Melissa Sweet highlights the life of writer, painter, and gardener Celia Thaxter.  Her passion for the sea, her island homes, her gardens, and the natural world are beautifully showcased.

When Celia Laighton was very young, she lived on White Island, where the rocks were gray and white, and the waves that broke on the rocks were gray and white, and the seagulls that rode the sea were gray and white.

Celia planted marigolds among those rocks in the spring and observed the native plants in the summer.  In the autumn, she watched a variety of birds leave to fly south for the winter.  Sometimes at night she could see them flying in the beam of the lighthouse light.  In the harsh winters, Celia, her  two brothers, and parents survived some terrible storms.  In the spring Celia planted again.

At the age of twelve, Celia and her family moved to the island of Appledore, near White Island.  There her father built a hotel.  Celia planted a garden.  She gathered rain water to keep the plants healthy.  Celia was constantly at work in either her garden or at the hotel.  When she got older, Celia met and married Levi Thaxter.  He did not like Appledore Island.  They set up residence on the mainland.

Celia missed her islands, even their winters.  She missed her garden.  To fill her sadness, Celia wrote about the sea and her gardens.  They were published and received by those who longed for the sea and island life.  Celia filled her indoor space with flowers and grew many from seeds.  She began to paint about the sea, her islands, and flowers.

In the spring after winters on the mainland, Celia would sail to Appledore Island taking flowers with her and expanding her garden.  Birds loved her gardens (and the inside of her home).  One day a harsh summer storm pelted freezing rains on Appledore Island.  What Celia found the next day and what eventually happened is a testament to Celia and her garden.  Miracle?

The devotion Celia Thaxter had for the sea, her island homes, her gardens, and birds grows inside readers with every word written by authors Phyllis Root and Gary D. Schmidt.  Each revelation about the life of Celia Thaxter unfolds like the blossoms she loved so well.  The names of flowers and birds she adored are woven into the narrative.

As the seasons of the year and of Celia's life pass, we are presented with specific events to mark each one.  There is a repetition of certain words and phrases fashioning a rhythm.  We come to understand that these rhythms are kin to the rhythms of the seasons and they are the rhythms of Celiz Thaxter's life and her work.  Here is a passage.

Still, Celia planted a bigger garden than before, even though she had so much to do 

at the new hotel.  Artists and writers were coming to stay, and each summer day she

greeted the new guests and went out to plant.  She served in the hotel's dining room

and went out to weed.  She made up the guests' beds and went out to clip blossoms

for the vases on their dressers.

And on that rocky and waterless island, Celia's garden bloomed gloriously.

The highly intricate signature artwork of Melissa Sweet is evident on the open and matching dust jacket and book case.  Her blend of complementary hues and layers invites us to step into Celia Thaxter's world.  On the front, right side, she frames Celia at work in her island garden with intimate views of her flowers.  The presence of a hummingbird is a hint of wonder to come in this astonishing woman's life.  To the left of the spine, on the back, on the palest of peach backgrounds (almost cream) are two vignettes separated by clipping shears and a cut flower.  These images are paired with the above-noted words in the interior of the book.  The artwork on the left is of Celia chatting with a guest in her garden as other visitors at the hotel are silhouetted behind them.  On the right are a collection of vases in white and black filled with colorful flowers.

On the opening endpapers is an outline, a plan, fifty feet by fifteen feet of a garden.  It is drawn as if we are looking down at the garden.  On the closing endpapers, in a collage of memorabilia and artwork, is a postcard or photograph of Appledore, Isles Of Shoals.

At the first page turn after the opening endpapers on the left are two maps.  One in the left-hand corner shows the position of the Isles of Shoals in relation to New Hampshire and Maine.  The larger map shows the Isles of Shoals.  Vivid strips indicate the two islands where Celia planted gardens.  The islands are labeled and readers can see how some of the islands belong to New Hampshire and others are a part of Maine.  On the title page is a postcard with a seagull filling most of the space.  To the left of the card are a set of watercolors and a paintbrush.

Melissa Sweet rendered these images

in watercolor, gouache, and mixed media.

They are a mix of two-page pictures, single-page pictures and pictures within pictures.  Columns are made within these illustrations.  In the columns are quotations by Celia Thaxter relevant to the narrative.  For every two pages, there is a quote with two exceptions.  Two single pages each have a quote and the following two pages have none.  All of these eloquent visuals bring us deeply into the story, not as observers but as if we were there.

One of my many favorite illustrations is a single-page visual.  On the left side we see a portion of the lighthouse where Celia's father initially worked on White Island.  The windows are glowing.  It is so cold outside that Celia and her brothers breathe on pennies and place them on the frozen windows so they can see outside.  On the right, Melissa Sweet has displayed a dark, angry and icy sea with howling winds.  Embedded in the waves are the words:

The sea is black and white

as death, with horrible long

billows that break and roar

aloud.

In a word, Celia Planted A Garden: The Story of Celia Thaxter And Her Island Garden written by Phyllis Root and Gary D. Schmidt with artwork by Melissa Sweet, is fascinating, especially when the time in which it took place is considered.  At the close of the book are two pages titled A Note On Celia Laighton Thaxter.  These are followed by two pages of a detailed timeline with forty-seven significant years.  There is an extensive one and one-half page bibliography.  I highly recommend this title for both your professional and personal collections.

To learn more about Phyllis Root and her other work, please follow the link attached to her name to access her website.  She has an account on Facebook.  You can find out more about Gary D. Schmidt at these two links, his Calvin University page and an article in the university's publication, Spark.  By following the link attached to Melissa Sweet's name, you can access her website.  There you can learn about her work.  She has accounts on Facebook and Instagram.  At the publisher's website, you can download a four-page teacher's guide.  At Penguin Random House, you can view interior images.

Outside And Up Close To Mother Earth

For several months now they've been arriving in my mail; tantalizing in their promise of spring.  Filled with full color photographs of fruits, vegetables, flowers, shrubs and trees, they offer a sharp contrast to bare branches and ground covered with snow.  Turning page after page in each of these catalogs marks the arrival of the awakening. The pause is nearly over.

Keepers of gardens are already looking for buds on bushes and shoots poking through ground thawing in the warmer temperatures and sunny days.  Added voices are joining the daily birdsong chorus.  Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt (Chronicle Books, March 3, 2015) written by Kate Messner with illustrations by Christopher Silas Neal, a companion to their Over and Under the Snow, explores our natural world in the realm of a garden for three seasons of the year.

Up in the garden, I stand and plan---
my hands full of seeds and my head full of dreams.

A girl and her grandmother kneel in the dirt. When Nana says they need for the underneath to become drier and warmer, her granddaughter is curious about things below the surface.  In all shapes and sizes

earthworms and insects

are scurrying around sifting and shifting through the soil.

While unseen workers go about their business, the gardeners clear away the remnants of a previous year, reusing every dried piece and adding nutrients.  Little critters stir in their residences.  Soon the dirt is ready; seeds are planted, and watered.  Beneath their carefully tended rows, a special bug waits.

As summer replaces spring tiny bits of green poke through the top, growing bigger and bigger.  Above insects fly about completing their tasks as below others keep cool and busy.  A sudden shower thanks to a mischievous Nana cools down the girl and quenches thirsty roots.

In the garden, from the garden and below the garden all find an abundance of food.  Even when most of the world sleeps, another eats.  Sometimes an unexpected visitor strikes taking a treat.

As the months pass the air and breezes cool.  Colors change in the garden.  Early sunshine illuminates the work of an artist using frost as a medium.

It's time for the gardening duo to work gathering all the goodness grown.  It's time for

earthworms and insects 

to scuttle, squirm, burrow and slumber.  It's time for thoughts to be filled with another garden in another spring.


With her marvelous command of language Kate Messner leads us from the inside of winter to the outside of spring.  She wraps us in each of the seasons with her vivid descriptions.  Through a blend of conversation between the grandmother and granddaughter, the voice of the girl and an unseen narrator we move gracefully from the work in the garden and the joy shared by two, at play and rest, to the world of animals above and beneath the dirt.  It's as if Messner has captured the rhythm of the natural world and placed it on the pages of this book.  Here are two sample selections.

Spring sun shines down to melt the sleepy snow.
Wind whistles through last year's plants, and mud
sucks at my rain boots.

Down in the dirt earthworms tunnel deep.
I'm jealous of their cook, damp, dark.


Upon opening the dust jacket you can see Christopher Silas Neal's piece of art spanning flap edge to flap edge.  The view of the top layer, up and down, on the front expands to show a raised garden box with the tops of vegetables, the roots beneath and the tiny creatures around them.  The book case is an identical image.  On the opening endpapers vegetables and herbs along with a garden trowel are outlined in a pattern.  Flowers along with a watering can and clippers are highlighted on the closing endpapers.  In both sets the images are labeled as if handwritten. The verso and title page feature a close-up of the trowel stuck in the dirt.

All of the illustrations rendered in mixed media extend across two pages with the exception of eight single pages.  Not only do they enhance the narrative but beautifully depict the changing seasons.  A realistic but softened color palette allows you to join the gardeners in their activities.  Neal may take us close to a particular portion of the garden then give us a larger encompassing view.  He has a knack for knowing exactly when to do this.  We become the rabbit, the earthworms, the robin, the granddaughter and Nana.  His attention to details in the portrayal of all the creatures is exceptional.

I really have many favorite illustrations.  The single page with the dusky background, the girl standing, scarf blowing in the wind, arms wrapped around her as milkweed seeds fly from the pods is gorgeous in its limited color selections.  Another peaceful representation is of Nana and her granddaughter reading in the garden.  Their backs are to us, the book page showing s is for sunflower.  The two are seated on the ground among the sunflowers, several tied together to make a house.  Orange pumpkins are growing in the foreground.  Leaves float on a gentle breeze.  You want to join them.


Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt written by Kate Messner with illustrations by Christopher Silas Neal is a lovely tribute to the beauty we can add to the natural world.  Two artists, one with words and the other using mixed media, have combined their talents to create a garden you can carry with you everywhere.  All you have to do is open the pages.  This book speaks to the companionship of generations, gardening, the seasons and being aware of the creatures living on and beneath the dirt.


Please visit Kate Messner's and Christopher Silas Neal's websites by following the links attached to their names.  InkyGoodness conducted an interview of Christopher Silas Neal, Interview: Chris Silas Neal. One of the illustrations from this title is pictured there.  This book is one of three featured at author Julie Danielson's blog, Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast.  Here is a link to a drawing based upon this book at Christopher Silas Neal's Tumblr.  Here is a post Christopher Silas Neal did for the Chronicle Books Blog, Down In The Dirt.  Kate Messner is a guest on teacher librarian Matthew C. Winner's Let's Get Busy Podcast.  



Please be sure to visit Kid Lit Frenzy hosted by educator Alyson Beecher to discover other titles listed by bloggers participating in the 2015 Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge.

A Community Promise

As far back as I can remember, I can't think of a time when I have not spent spring, summer and fall working in a garden.  When growing up, every spring, the large garden behind the garage at our home was hand spaded and raked over and over to get ready for planting.  A tape measure, stakes and string made sure all the rows were straight and even.  Each seed and plant was carefully set in the dirt, covered and patted in place.  Watering, weeding and watching were done with devotion.

On more than one occasion my Dad had his picture in The Lansing State Journal for his tomato plants which stretched as high as the roof edge of our garage.  To this day, I've never tasted tomatoes like his tomatoes.  With all this being said, it was with a sense of anticipation I opened the cover of It's Our Garden:  From Seeds to Harvest in a School Garden (Candlewick Press) by George Ancona.

The school bell sounds...
and the classrooms explode with the
noise of books closing, chairs sliding
on the floor, and kids chattering.

Recess! Unlike students in other schools, the students at Acequia Madre Elementary School in Santa Fe, New Mexico spend part of their time working in the school garden.  From a dream held by one teacher to assistance from another and her husband along with college student volunteers, the land behind the school building was transformed.  Every season engages students, teachers, parents, and other community members in activities revolving around the garden.

Spring is filled with promise.  Seed catalogs are scanned for ideas, scraps from the cafeteria are taken to the compost pile which is then mixed into the dirt, seeds are planted inside the greenhouse first, and finally the planting outside is done in rows, beds and under tepees of bamboo poles.  Everything is protected from the sun with a mulch.

Gathering water, harnessing the energy from the sun and protecting the plants is completed through inventive techniques.  The small ecosystems living with the garden are explored and studied, bees, butterflies and bugs.  Students are invited to paint, draw and write about the garden.

The work continues with mixing ingredients to make adobe bricks, spreading a new layer of adobe on the outside oven for baking bread (horno), and harvesting early herbs and vegetables.  On weekends, the garden becomes a meeting place for the students, their families and community members; each contributing to the care of the garden.  When school closes for the summer, the garden is still open for activities and upkeep.

In fall as school resumes, harvesting begins in earnest with students learning the different methods.  To commemorate the end of the growing year, students are served lunches prepared with ingredients from their garden.  With the approach of winter one final day is spent by all getting this small but vital corner of the world ready for the cold, quiet change.


George Ancona discusses in the introduction how he spent a year photographing the activities of the children in the garden.  With simple, understandable text readers are given an insider's take on the happenings and studies throughout the months.  When a possible unfamiliar word is introduced Ancona defines it in terms of its place in the school garden; the components of compost, rain water collecting in a cistern, plastic tubes around the tomato plants, nectar and pollen and bees, the making of adobe and a three-sisters garden.

It's easy for readers to visualize everything taking place in this garden at Acequia Madre Elementary School through the extensive photographs displayed on every page.  George Ancona has taken great pains to give us a bird's eye view of the entire garden combined with numerous shots of the children, teachers, parents and volunteers working together.  Sometimes he brings us even closer, capturing a hand holding a worm, snake, bugs or a handful of seeds.

The layout and design of the book alters the picture sizes assuring us of the lively efforts and education evolving each day.  Drawings and paintings made by the children, grades kindergarten through six, are interspersed among the photographs.  Even the opening and closing endpapers done in shades of spring green feature a tiny pattern of butterflies, bugs and bees created by the students.


George Ancona in It's Our Garden: From Seeds to Harvest in a School Garden shows readers of all ages the riches to be gleaned from not only the garden itself but from all the relationships formed between the people and with the natural inhabitants within the garden.  It's a book highlighting the accomplishments of a community and this school but also an invitation for others to do the same.  It's a book filled with possibilities.  Wouldn't it be wonderful if every school had a garden?


Here is a video from Reading Rockets about George Ancona.