Customer Reviews

In Enzo's Splendid Garden

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I loved this book! As I was sitting in a children's library reviewing picture books, I tried to keep myself from bursting out in laughter as I read In Enzo's Splendid Gardens. This book is so fun and creative, and filled with a humorous, rhythmic storyline. The pictures are excellent as well, perfectly matching each hilarious episode. This book is a must read for young and old alike!

Enzo's Splendid Garden was a hillarious book. I think I enjoyed it as much as my daughter. We laughed and couldn't wait to see the next event come to the page. I recommend for the person who's had a bad day or just wants to keep the good day coming.

In Polacco's rollicking, urban version of "The House That Jack Built," the story begins innocuously enough with a tiny bee landing on a tree near an outdoor cafe. A little boy leans over to examines the bee and eventually--of course!--all hell breaks loose, spiraling out of control from this original, innocent action.

Kids will love the rhyming, rhythmic pace of the book, and adults will appreciate the tiny, out-of-the-way details such as the fountain cherub eventually coming down out of her stiff stance at the center of spraying water and helping everyone else at the restaurant gawk at what's going on--not to mention the fact that the original offending bee appears throughout in every single picture.

Polacco has--no surprise here--done it again!

I really think Patricia Polacco's "In Enzo's Splendid Garden" is a good book for an early childhood classroom. The story is very humourous and enjoyable and I think it would grab a student's attention from the start. I tihnk the exaggerated illustrations and Patricia Polacco's writing style make the story appealing for children. The illustrations also show the characters emotions and reactions very well and will help the student's with descriptions of characters. The story also uses a lot of rhyming, which would make this book great for a lesson on rhyming. I like how Patricia Polacco uses a wide variety of adjectives and descriptive words. She doesn't use the same descriptive words when she repeats an event in the story, which I think keeps the story from becoming repetatitive and increases the amount of vocabulary words in the story. "In Enzo's Splendid Garden" also teachs use a theme of how our actions affect others, which is appropriate for young children. Overall, I think this is a enjoyable story that can grab a student's attention while teaching them adjectives, rhyming words,character descriptions, lots of vocabulary words and a theme of how our actions affect others.

Wonderful story about Polacco's husband and his family. Great to use when studying different immigrant groups and their adjustments to life in the US.

In most cumulative stories, the elements are repeated EXACTLY as they were before. In this one, the details alter in each verse, making it much less tedious to go through.

Very funny story. The only real qualm I have is that for a book published in 1997 they could've shown some - or even one! - non-white person. Polacco writes a number of good books with diverse casts as a matter of course, so I'm not sure how she dropped the ball on this one.

Patricia Polacco uses the repetitive genre similar to There's a Bear in the Woods in her book In Enzo's Splendid Garden. Although there are humorous moments, my daughter, age 7, was completely bored. She much more appreciates Polacco's narrative storytelling in books such as Thank You, Mr. Falker.