Daniel Seton

Beautifully illustrated with realistic flora and fauna, this book describes the kid-led effort to transform a small backyard into an urban wildlife oasis: the dig a pond, replace lawn with wildflowers, plant native shrubs, build birdhouses, and create a "creepy crawly hotel" woodpile. The parents gamely go along, and they all enjoy the change over the seasons; in summer, they hang up a sheet and attract moths with a light. Back matter includes additional advice (some of it UK-specific; we show more don't have wild hedgehogs in North America) and resources. The endpapers are spectacular, straight out of a nature guide, featuring all kinds of plants and animals (e.g. badget, knapweed, dung beetle, heron, fox, dandelion, daffodil). show less

As a gardener who practices permaculture and focuses on creating habitat for various creatures in her yard, I really thought this would be the book for me. I love the topic and am very happy to see such a helpful idea explored in a children's book!
I enjoyed the art style but sometimes found the story told in the images slightly difficult to follow. (Why do we need to remove the grill to have a pond?) I think most of what this book does is encourage kids to ask for a wild garden and give show more parents a starting point for what to look into.
The kids are initially inspired by a jungle scene, and they're not going to get that or those types of animals in their UK backyard. I can imagine that being disappointing to a kid. I think the real joy of a wild garden is seeing how a mostly barren landscape can become full of life, mostly insect and bird life, and some of that is portrayed in this book.
I also don't think this is practical enough with advice for parents on how to realistically begin. Small steps like eliminating the use of pesticides and keeping one patch of the lawn long makes this more feasible for people and is a huge benefit.
Overall the book has good intentions and is solid, but it did not have enough practical information for my preferences.

Thanks to NetGalley for access to this book in exchange for an honest review. show less

There is so much about this book that I love! The nature, the garden, the rewilding, the family working together and allowing nature to take over their garden. The storyline is great! I would definitely love to read this again!