Children's books about gardening

Ten Titles on Tuesday: 5/25/21

Heyo! It’s Tuesday. Thanks for being here.

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This week’s Ten Titles, never in any particular order:

1. Tales Our Abuelitas Told: A Hispanic Folktale Collection by Alma Flor Ada

2. Sakamoto’s Swim Club: How a Teacher Led an Unlikely Team to Victory by Julie Abery

3. Maybe Maybe Marisol Rainey by Erin Entrada Kelly

4. Child of the May by Theresa Tomlinson

5. Romulus and Remus by Anne Rockwell

6. Kuan Yin: The Princess Who Became the Goddess of Compassion by Maya van der Meer

7. The Sea King’s Daughter: A Russian Legend by Aaron Shepard

8. When My Cousins Come to Town by Angela Shanté

9. Days Like This: A Collection of Small Poems by Simon James

10. Poppy’s Puppet by Patricia Lee Gauch

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Mini issue: gardening

My children’s pollinator garden on August 7, 2020

It’s gardening season! 👩‍🌾 For some — maybe even most — of you it’s been gardening season for awhile, months probably, but spring arrived barely six weeks ago here and, well, it’s always a slow start. (Honestly some years I question whether summer is even real or just something we vaguely remember from a hazy past, where I can assure you I was hidden away in air conditioning trying to recreate winter. I am a Wisconsinite through and through.)

Full reviews of several additional gardening books are forthcoming in my special edition on summer, which will hit your inbox next Wednesday.

This is everything I’ve got on gardening, folks. I hope, at the very least, it inspires you to get your hands in some dirt.

Highly recommended

• The Curious Garden by Peter Brown

• Sunflower House by Eve Bunting

• Rainbow Stew by Cathryn Falwell

• My Garden by Kevin Henkes

• Earth Mother by Ellen Jackson (I reviewed this in issue No. 19 — not specifically a gardening book but it still applies, and it’s gorgeous)

• The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss

• Green Green: A Community Gardening Story by Marie Lamba and Baldev Lamba

• Lola Plants a Garden by Anna McQuinn

• If You Plant a Seed by Kadir Nelson

• Gladiola Garden by Effie Lee Newsome (poetry)

Everything else

• The Little Green Girl by Lisa Anchin

• Anno’s Magic Seeds by Mitsumasa Anno

• Linnea’s Windowsill Garden by Christina Björk (for older elementary)

• Paddington in the Garden by Michael Bond

• Native American Gardening: Stories, Projects and Recipes for Families by Michael J. Caduto and Joseph Bruchac

• Biscuit in the Garden by Alyssa Satin Capucilli

• My Nana’s Garden by Dawn Casey

• Jack’s Garden by Henry Cole

• Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney (there is one page in this book with problematic depictions of American Indians; I change the language to explain this)

• Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert

• Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman (chapter book for older readers or read-aloud)

• We Are the Gardeners by Joanna Gaines

• In the Garden by Emma Giuliani

• I Heard it From Alice Zucchini: Poems About the Garden by Jaunita Havill (poetry)

• Alison’s Zinnia by Anita Lobel

• Up to My Knees! by Grace Lin (living math book)

• Roots, Shoots, Buckets & Boots: Gardening Together with Children by Sharon Lovejoy (an adult book to be used with children)

• Sunflower Houses: Inspiration From the Garden--A Book for Children and Their Grown-Ups by Sharon Lovejoy (previously published as Sunflower Houses: Garden Discoveries for Children of All Ages; also an adult book to be used with children)

• Jayden’s Impossible Garden by Mélina Mangal

• Secret in the Garden by James Mayhew

• In a Garden by Tim McCanna

• Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt by Kate Messner (part of the four-book, nonfiction Over and Under seasonal series)

• The Gardener by Sarah Stewart

• Tops & Bottoms by Janet Stevens

• The Forever Garden by Laurel Synder

• Two Little Gardeners by Margaret Wise Brown (I reviewed this in issue No. 9)

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Read good books and take good care 😘
Sarah
@can_we_read