My Garden

This was a simple story about a girl's imaginary garden. I found myself imagining the garden I would build while I read about hers. It was simple fun. ( )

A young girl describes her own ideal garden in this paean to childhood imagination, envisioning a fantastic space with no weeds, chocolate bunnies that the girl can eat (rather than flesh-and-blood bunnies who eat the plants), flowers that automatically grow again, when picked, and soil in which anything that is planted - sea shells, jelly beans - will yield a crop. The colorful ink and watercolor illustrations have a simple, folksy feeling that accentuates the "simple" pleasures of a garden, while also capturing the magical elements of the tale, from the sunflowers that change color, to the heavily-laden jelly bean tree.

Like so many of Kevin Henkes other "non-mouse" picture-books that I have read - most recently, Old Bear - I found that I enjoyed My Garden, but did not think it outstanding. I certainly liked the idea of it (not to mention getting a kick out of the jelly-bean tree, as that's something I might have wished for myself, as a young girl), but somehow the end result was not as enchanting as one might expect, given the immense talents of this author/artist. I'm not one to say that artists shouldn't try new styles, and I certainly haven't disliked any of his recent work (which includes the Caldecott Medal-winning Kitten's First Full Moon), but I think in my heart of hearts I will always prefer Henkes' earlier "mouse" stories, both from an artistic and storytelling perspective. ( )

In this whimsical story a young girl’s imaginary garden comes to life on the pages. It’s a place where seashells grow and chocolate bunnies abound, where flowers come in all shapes and colors, even patterns. Preschooler, who insists on planting rocks in our front yard so that she can grow more rocks, wants to hear this repeatedly. And the illustrations? GORGEOUS. Beautiful pastel colors that I wish would leap out of the page and into my own garden attempts. ( )

In this whimsical story a young girl’s imaginary garden comes to life on the pages. It’s a place where seashells grow and chocolate bunnies abound, where flowers come in all shapes and colors, even patterns. Preschooler, who insists on planting rocks in our front yard so that she can grow more rocks, wants to hear this repeatedly. And the illustrations? GORGEOUS. Beautiful pastel colors that I wish would leap out of the page and into my own garden attempts. ( )

This book is about a little girl helping her mom in the garden. While doing so her imagination is in full use as she thinks about what her very own garden would look like. The illustrations extend the text and depict the little girls imagined garden beautifully with detailed illustrations that should inspire any reader to imagine a garden of their own. This book would be a nice addition to a plant unit. This would be a good book to practice RL.1.4 Identify words and phrases in stories or poems that suggest feelings or appeal to the senses. It would also be a great springboard to a creative writing piece about an imagined garden.