The Little Gardener

Since it's that time of year to start thinking about planting...

The Little Gardener

Emily Hughes 2015

Emily Hughes' bright full page pictures show a botanical world where a very little gardener (he even has a pet earth worm!) lives.  While he takes pride and works hard in his garden, he's simply too little and the world around him too big to make much of a difference.  It takes the help of some bigger gardeners, who are inspired by a beautiful flower, to help transform the Little Gardener's home. 

Miss Maple's Seeds

After reading A Seed is Sleepy, why not continue the theme and try Miss Maple's Seeds, with a more fanciful charming approach.  At the end of every summer Miss Maple collects seeds and takes care of them as if they were her children.  

She learns each seed by heart, all similar yet none the same.  "Take care, my little ones,"  Miss Maple says, "for the world is big and you are small."

She takes them on field trips to learn about being a seed, she reads them flower tales by firefly light, and keeps them cozy and dry during the winter, then sends them (in Eliza Wheeler's beautiful illustrations) out into the world to grow with a final refrain, "Take care, my little ones, for the wold is big and you are small.  But never forget...even the greatest of trees once had to grow up from the smallest of seeds."

Miss Maple's Seeds

Eliza Wheeler 2013

Other books by Eliza Wheeler:

The Grudge Keeper

The Day Before April

The Day Before April

The day before April

Alone, alone,

I walked in the woods 

And sat on a stone.

I sat on a broad stone

And sang to the birds.

The tune was God's making

But I made the words.

-Mary Carolyn Davies