Customer Reviews

My Garden

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, move over. There's a new girl in the garden -- a happy, little daydreamer who envisions chocolate rabbits, jelly bean bushes and seashell fields. Kevin Henkes sows the seeds of imagination and illustrates with colors of spring in his newest picture book, My Garden. A barefoot little girl helps her mother in a cheery garden by watering and weeding the plants. All the while, she fantasies about her ideal garden.

"In my garden, the flowers could change color just by my thinking about it -- pink, blue, green purple. Even patterns."

The little girl's vast imagination takes readers beyond the restraints of the world, into a extraordinary place where the flowers never die and where umbrellas conveniently pop out of the ground just as the spring rain begins. Kevin Henkes adds another feather to his brimming hat with this beautiful book. His spectacular, watercolor illustrations overflow the pages with creative page layout. Fanciful images appear as full bleeds and then he takes readers back to reality with smaller spot illustrations. His book spurs the imagination and presents endless possibilities as a read aloud.

My daughter considered what her own garden might contain and decided on toys, kittens, puppies, and balloons! She loved thinking outside the box!
(Review copy provided by publisher)

I love choosing books for storytime that encourage children to think and imagine, and this one does just that. It's very simple both in text and illustrations, and the best part about it is that it promotes interaction. The kids had a great time telling me what they would plant in their garden! It's a perfect spring time read and a good way to start talking about gardens and growing things.

I do want to include how much I have enjoyed all of this author's most recent books. They are perfect for group sharing and all foster the imagination - from Birds, to A Good Day, to Old Bear and now My Garden, the author has provided us with beautiful spare stories that really pack a wallop and are a joy to share with even the youngest children.

Henkes' newest offering is in the same style as Old Bear and A Good Day, which in turn seemed to build on the black and white style of his Caldecott-winning Kitten's First Full Moon. Lots of soft, sunny pastels of green, pink and purple, outlined in thick muted blue lines dominate this springtime story. After spending the day in the garden with her mother, a little girl begins to imagine a fantasy garden. In her ideal world, "flowers could change color just by thinking about it." She also dreams of tomatoes as big as beach balls and flowers which grow back the instant you pick them. This isn't explicitly an Easter story, but she does wish for chocolate rabbits (instead of the pesky nibblers of her real garden) and bushes of jellybeans. When the girl gets ready to go inside for the night, she acknowledges that her dream garden probably couldn't really exist, but she does go ahead and plant a seashell... just in case. The author's sly wink of an ending shows a cutaway view with the shell growing roots.
Henkes fans will not be disappointed with My Garden. This book is sure to be a staple in children's book collections for many years to come.

This is a very sweet book.

It is not, truth to tell, as absolutely perfect as Henkes's other books. Owen and Wemberly Worried and Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse are all genuine achievements in children's literature: books about kids' lives that don't sound like Books About Kids' Issues.

This book isn't quite as quirky and delightful and wise as those.

But it is still a very sweet book--a lovely walk through a little girl's imaginary garden, complete with giant tomatoes, chocolate bunnies (instead of the troublesome lettuce-stealing ones), jelly bean bushes, and pink-and-purple plaid sunflowers.

It's not a must-have children's book, but if you get it, you'll enjoy it.

I love the concept of this book - a little girl who, while helping her mother in their garden, imagines the type of garden *she* would have. Her imagination is endless, from planting seashells to grow seashells, to jellybeans to grow candy plants, to all sorts of things in between!

I love books that inspire and promote imagination, and this book does just that.

I did feel though that the book needed more connection (the things to plant felt a little too random for me). And the bit about there not being real bunnies in the girl's garden, but instead chocolate bunnies that she could eat seemed just a little disturbing (not that I think it was meant that way, but, it was just a little odd for me...). Plus, I would love real rabbits way more than chocolate ones :)

All in all though it was an enjoyable book with vibrant illustrations!

The pictures in this book are lovely. The text is poetic.
But what happened on the last page?
The ending was a little FLAT.

I bought this book to read to my Pre-K class of 4 and 5 year old students. We are learning about growing things and have planted beans and peas. We also planted Marigold seeds to give as gifts for Mother's Day. This book was a great extension for the lesson. The pictures are beautiful, the story simple and it gave the class a chance to dream about planting other things in their own imaginary garden. They especially liked the chocolate rabbits that were planted in this book and the invisible carrots "because I don't like carrots". A lot of laughter came from this circle time story. I plan to read it each year during our spring planting unit. I also shared the book with other teachers who read it to their classes and had equally rewarding responses from their students. Keep writing Kevin!

I can't wait to give this to my daughter in her Easter basket. She loves all of the Kevin Henkes picture books: A Good Day, Kitten's First Full Moon, Old Bear, and Little White Rabbit. I know she will love this one. And I can't wait to talk about the garden project we will be embarking on and be imaginative and talk about what she would like to grow in her pretend garden like the girl in the story. She also loves the mice books from Kevin Henkes. Thank you Kevin Henkes!!

My Garden is yet another simple and beautiful book by Kevin Henkes. He manages to perfectly harmonize vivid detail with enough ambiguity to allow children to imagine what might happen in their own magical garden. I love that the garden grows old-fashioned keys and my son loves the chocolate bunnies.

I never think twice about buying a new Henkes book and My Garden is no exception.

I was not sure of this one, as I have two grandsons who love plants right now. I thought maybe with the girl on the front, it wouldn't suit them. They both love this book. The 5 yr. old likes that he can have the garden his way and the 2 yr old likes the beauty of the flowers and that they would grow back when cut. We read this one several times a day and both boys sit to listen when one chooses it.