Celia Planted a Garden

Celia Planted a Garden

Phyllis Root and Gardy D. Schmidt

illustrated by Melissa Sweet 2022

I only recently became familiar with Celia Thaxter through her beautiful poetry.

 Have patience; here are flowers and songs of birds,

 Beauty and fragrance, wealth of sound and sight,

 All summer's glory thine from morn till night,

And life too full of joy for uttered words

And I have been reading in stops and starts her book "An Island Garden" about her summers spent gardening on the island of Appledore off of New Hampshire in the 19th century. 

This children's book is a nice companion with collage-like pages and interspersed quotes. 

An Island Garden

originally published in 1894 and illustrated by Childe Hassam

 

Miss Jaster's Garden

It's time for a silly Spring garden book and Mr. Bodecker has just the right one!

Miss Jaster's Garden

N.M Bodecker

1972

Miss Jaster has a beautiful garden and house and the most adorable hedgehog who visits her.  

"On these occasions, Miss Jaster would go back into the house for a saucer of milk, which she placed at what she hoped was the right end of the hedgehog.  But hedgehogs being the shape they are, and Miss Jaster being a little nearsighted, as often as not she put the saucer where the hedgehog's head wasn't.  And Hedgie- so as not to cause distress- politely dipped his tail in the milk and pretended to drink.  Later, when Miss Jaster went into the house and lit the lamp on the piano, he drank the milk properly."

Through a series of mishaps, Hedgie ends up sprouting flowers and can't help but frolic with abandon.  Unfortunately Miss Jaster's poor eyesight has her thinking she sees a flower thief and even the local constable gets involved.  Things are set right in the end and you can't help but giggle at Bodecker's adorable illustrations.

I love this sweet part that perfectly captures how Spring can make one feel:  

But Hedgie wasn't really thinking of the hum and flutter around him.  Something inside him was bursting to get out:  the special something that makes birds sing, and poets rhyme, and puppy dogs chase their tails.

Rosy's Garden

Rosy's Garden

A Child's Keepsake of Flowers

Satomi Ichikawa 1990

We stretched this one out over several nights of reading.  Ichikawa's pictures make you feel like you are right there in the middle of an English cottage garden.  Rosy has gone to stay with her grandmother for the summer and each page tells a little story or some history or information about the flowers in her grandmother's garden.  

Other books by Satomi Ichikawa:

Suzette and Nicholas in the Garden

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

A Seed is Sleepy

I love finding books that do a really wonderful job of teaching about science and nature but in an engaging artistic way.  Diana Hutts Aston's A Seed is Sleepy is a winner!  This picture book describes the importance of seeds, the plants they come from and how they grow and travel.  We learned about how the shape of seeds and the way they are hidden (or not) inside a plant helps them to find a new place in the ground and perpetuate the species.  Charlotte and I talked about the burs that we've had stick to our clothes and the seeds we've found on the beach that have floated on the ocean.  I will definitely be looking for Aston's other nature books!

A Seed is Sleepy

Dianna Hutts Aston

illustrated by Sylvia Long 2007

I particularly like how the front page shows different seeds...

and the back page shows the corresponding plants.