A Gardener's Alphabet (Hardcover)

by Mary Azarian (Author) "After almost forty years of growing all manner of plants, I have almost learned how to garden..." (more)

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal
Kindergarten-Grade 2-True, there are great numbers of alphabet books, but when they are works of art they rise beyond teaching the letters. A Gardener's Alphabet is one of these. Azarian leads readers into the book with a two-page introduction that explains the importance of gardens in her life. The alphabet then begins, with one full-page illustration for each letter. The featured letter does not stand alone, but begins one word: "ARBOR," "BULBS," "COMPOST." The words are a mixture of nouns ("LAWN ORNAMENTS," "QUEEN ANNE'S LACE"); verbs ("DIG," "NIBBLE"); and types of gardens ("JAPANESE GARDEN," "KITCHEN GARDEN"). Words that may be unfamiliar to most children are not explained, e.g., "TOPIARY" and "XERISCAPE." The stunning black woodcuts, hand tinted with strong watercolors, are full of action and detail, showing men, women, and child gardeners with their tools and the rewards of their labors, with small creatures visible here and there. Each page can inspire conversation between an adult and child who may then do some gardening of their own.
Carolyn Jenks, First Parish Unitarian Church, Portland, ME
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
A master of the hand-colored woodcut, artist Mary Azarian shares with the viewer (of any age) her love of gardens - both vegetable and flower - and the work and joy that goes into their cultivation. Though there are appropriate words for each letter, it is the lovingly detailed pictures that reward our close attention. Turning the pages is akin to viewing a superior art exhibition. Children will also expand their gardening vocabulary: arbor, compost, topiary and xeriscape, the most obscure X ever to grace an alphabet book. (It means a garden of desert flower and plants.) This is a lovely picture-book, particularly for summer reading and viewing. A 2000 Parents' Choice® Silver Honor winner.

Reviewed by Selma G. Lanes, Parents' Choice® 2000 -- From Parents' Choice

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 4-8
  
• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children; 1ST edition (April 24, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618033807
• ISBN-13: 978-0618033805
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 9.3 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,006,918 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Illustrations match a Garden's Beauty, May 22, 2000

By A Customer

Mary Azarian was inspired by her own garden and has used the perfect form of illustration - woodcuts - to bring to life the alphabet of a garden.

The perspecives range from above and below the ground and show not only the joys but also hardships that come from creating a garden.

The simple words and strong visuals will be great for children learning about the natural world, but is also a beautiful gift for the gardener or nature lover in your life.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lovely book, but..., September 14, 2008

By	Ulyyf "Connie" (NYC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Gardener's Alphabet (Paperback)

This is a lovely book. The illustrations are beautifully done, the vocabulary is carefully chosen - and the illustrations make very clear the meaning of unusual words like "xeriscape", but there's not much you can do for x anyway.

But, it's true. Every person in this book is white, and it really is a little weird. I don't live anywhere where I can consistently expect the people I meet to be white, so it would never occur to me to draw a whole book full of people of just that one race. I wonder where the author lives that it wouldn't occur to her to draw a more normal sample of the population.

It's not a bad book, it's just - that sort of thing is very obvious, and kinda annoying.

22 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars lovely, but..., June 9, 2000

By	R Smith (Connecticut, USA) - See all my reviews

I got a chance to see Mary Azarian's new alphabet book yesterday. I think her illustrations are heartwarming and lovely, and have enjoyed them for years in the Cook's Garden catalog and in books like The Plain Reader. I'm also a gardener and a former children's librarian ,and I enjoy seeing gardening depicted in children's books. However, I must say I was sadly disapponted to see no people of color depicted in any of the illustrations in this book. Surely Ms. Azarian must have met a nonwhite gardener at some point in her life; if not, that's sad, and she is welcome to come to my house and meet me before the next book. As a person of color I felt saddened and left out as I looked through the pages; how would a small child (of any ethnicity) feel? Had it not been for this exclusion I would have joyfully given this book five stars.