Tag Archives: gardening

PPBF – Ojiichan’s Gift

Tis the season of giving, so I think a picture book about a gift is a Perfect Picture Book!

Title: Ojiichan’s Gift

Written By: Chieri Uegaki

Illustrated By: Genevieve Simms

Publisher/Date: Kids Can Press/2019

Suitable for Ages: 4-8

Themes/Topics: Japan, gardening, intergenerational, adapting to changes

Opening:

When Mayumi van Horton was born, her grandfather built her a garden.

It sat behind a tidy brown house nearly halfway around the world, and it was unlike any other garden she knew.

Brief Synopsis:

Mayumi’s grandfather built her a garden made of stones behind his home in Japan. But when age and health made it difficult to remain in the home, Mayumi had to figure out a way to take the garden along.

Links to Resources:

  • Learn about, and make, your own Japanese garden;
  • Do you have an activity that you enjoy doing with a grandparent or other elderly relative or family friend? Learn a favorite recipe or a special craft from that person;
  • Check out the Teaching Guide for more ideas.

Why I Like this Book:

In this gentle, intergenerational picture book, young Mayumi tends her garden each summer with her grandfather, Ojiichan, who lives in Japan. I love how the garden acts as a means to bond two family members separated by oceans for much of the year. I also love how this activity helps Mayumi learn more about her Japanese heritage. And I especially love that Ojiichan gifts the garden to Mayumi at the outset, which enables her to gift something special to him.

But during one visit, Mayumi and her parents realize that Ojiichan is no longer able to live alone and to care for the garden. At first, Mayumi is angry, a response I think many children (and adults) will understand. She tries to knock over rocks and kicks up gravel. But as she notices the mess that she’s made, she determines to clean up the garden and “a tiny idea took root”. I won’t ruin the ending by sharing what she did, but in the end, she manages to create not just one, but two remembrances of this special shared garden.

Accompanied by Simms’ soft watercolor illustrations, Uegaki’s text provides a gentle roadmap for kids separated from loved ones and for those trying to hold on to special memories.

A Note about Craft:

Perhaps because a Japanese garden is at the center of Ojiichan’s Gift, the story has a calm and peaceful feel to it, perfect for children who are struggling to adapt to changes in their lives, be it aging elders, a move, or some other major life change. This Perfect Picture Book entry will be added to Susanna Hill’s Perfect Picture Book list. Check out the other great picture books featured there!

Perfect Pairing Loves Lemonade

I saw this display at a garden center recently, and I suddenly grew thirsty for lemonade. How about you?

The Lemonade Club

Author & Illustrator: Patricia Polacco

Publisher/Date: Philomel Books, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group/2007

Ages: 6-9

Themes: lemonade, friendship, cancer, teacher, making the best of a bad situation

Short Synopsis (from Goodreads):

Everyone loves Miss Wichelman’s fifth-grade class, especially best friends Traci and Marilyn. That’s where they learn that when life hands you lemons, make lemonade! They are having a great year until Traci begins to notice some changes in Marilyn. She’s losing weight, and seems tired all the time. She has leukemia, and a tough road of chemotherapy ahead. It is not only Traci and Miss Wichelman who stand up for her, but in a surprising and unexpected turn, the whole fifth-grade class, who figures out a way to say we’re with you. In true Polacco fashion, this book turns lemons into lemonade and celebrates amazing life itself.

Read a review at Kirkus Reviews.

 

When Grandma Gives You a Lemon Tree

Author: Jamie L.B. Deenihan

Illustrator: Lorraine Rocha

Publisher/Date: Sterling Children’s Books/2019

Ages: 3-7

Themes: birthday, gifts, intergenerational, gardening, making the best of a bad situation

Short Synopsis (from Goodreads):

When Grandma gives you a lemon tree, definitely don’t make a face! Care for the tree, and you might be surprised at how new things, and new ideas, bloom. 

“When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” In this imaginative take on that popular saying, a child is surprised (and disappointed) to receive a lemon tree from Grandma for her birthday. After all, she DID ask for a new gadget! But when she follows the narrator’s careful—and funny—instructions, she discovers that the tree might be exactly what she wanted after all. This clever story, complete with a recipe for lemonade, celebrates the pleasures of patience, hard work, nature, community . . . and putting down the electronic devices just for a while.

Read a review at Jilanne Hoffmann’s blog.

I paired these books because both refer to that old saying, “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade”. On the surface, these are very different picture books. Based on a true story, The Lemonade Club deals head on with a very difficult topic: cancer. In contrast, When Grandma Gives You a Lemon Tree is humorous fiction with the “bad situation” being the receipt of an unusual birthday gift, a lemon tree. But both books feature main characters who grow and show empathy, and both feature surprise endings. Also, in a note at the beginning of When Grandma Gives You a Lemon Tree, debut author Deenihan reveals that as she was writing and revising, her family was dealing with a cancer diagnosis. Thankfully, all is well now.

 

 

 

Perfect Pairing – Thinks about Spring Flowers

It’s my eldest daughter’s birthday today, so to celebrate, I thought I’d give her flowers, or more precisely, share two picture books with greenery and blossoms at their heart.

Florette

Author & Illustrator: Anna Walker

Publisher/Date: Clarion Books/2018

Ages: 4-8

Themes: gardening; nature in urban areas; moving; friendship

Short Synopsis (from Goodreads):

When Mae’s family moves to a new home, she wishes she could bring her garden with her. She’ll miss the apple trees, the daffodils, and chasing butterflies in the wavy grass. But there’s no room for a garden in the city. Or is there?

Read a review at Design of the Picture Book .

 

The Seeds of Friendship

Author & Illustrator: Michael Foreman

Publisher/Date: Candlewick Press/2015

Ages:  4-8

Themes: gardening; nature in urban areas; moving; friendship; immigrant

Short Synopsis (from Goodreads):

Adam felt alone in the strange, new city. He missed the colours and friendships of his faraway home. But when a teacher at school gives him a few seeds, she plants an idea in him – an idea that could transform his grey world forever. Michael Foreman’s beautifully-illustrated story is a powerful fable of how friendship can grow in our world.

Read a review at Kirkus Reviews.

I paired these books because they both feature children who have moved to gray urban spaces and who strive to bring nature’s greenery to the city. In Florette, Mae draws trees on empty moving boxes, races to visit pebble-covered parks, and then rescues a small sprout from outside a florist shop window. From that sprout, she grows both a garden and finds friends. In The Seeds of Friendship, Adam, a young immigrant, seeks to adapt to life in a cold, gray city. When a teacher gifts him some seeds, he grows a rooftop garden, bringing color to the city and finding friends. I especially liked how both books depict nature-loving children who persevere to bring what they love to their new homes.

Looking for similar reads?

See A Piece of Home.

PPBF: A Piece of Home

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New skill –  driven from NJ to lower Manhattan & Brooklyn, summer 2016

Strange but true fact about me: I love to move. Really! I’m the “go to” parent when my kids move (all three are doing so this summer), and I’ve even contemplated starting a moving consultancy to help seniors downsize. So when I see a book about moving, I can’t resist. Once you see this week’s Perfect Picture Book, you won’t be able to either – whether you enjoy moving or not.

9780763669713_p0_v1_s192x300Title: A Piece of Home

Written By: Jeri Watts

Illustrated By: Hyewon Yum

Publisher/date: Candlewick Press, June 2016

Suitable for Ages: 5-8

Themes/Topics: immigration, moving, Korea, extended family, home, gardening

Opening: “In Korea, my grandmother was a wise and wonderful teacher. When students bowed, she held her shoulders erect, but her eyes sparkled.”

Brief Synopsis: A young boy and his family relocate from urban Korea to West Virginia and he struggles to adapt to life in their new home.

Links to Resources:

  • What reminds you of home? Draw a picture or write a story about it and share it with a friend, classmate or family member
  • Welcome a new student to your school or a new family to your neighbourhood
  • Ask an elderly relative or neighbour about their favourite plants; plant one in your home garden

Why I Like this Book:

A Piece of Home is a lovely intergenerational story of adapting and settling in to a new home in a new country. The main character and narrator, Hee Jun, worries not just about the challenges he faces, but about how his grandmother, who lives and moves with the family, giving up her career to do so, will thrive. While moving and adapting to a new home are the subject of several picture books (see below), A Piece of Home is unique insofar as both the narrator and his grandmother in this intergenerational family must adapt. I also love that a plant, the Rose of Sharon, plays an important role in the resolution of the story.

Ms. Yum’s soft watercolour illustrations and especially the expressive faces of Hee Jun, his family and classmates perfectly complement Watts’ text.19bookshelf-4-master1050-1
A Note about Craft:

Jeri Watts includes some awesome juxtapositions in this tale, including using the terms ordinary, extraordinary & different to great effect. I especially liked her observation that grandmother “could find the extraordinary held within the ordinary”, like the bright red centers in the Rose of Sharon flowers. And Hee Jun observes that in Korea, he was “ordinary,” not different, as he is upon arrival in the US.

The action in A Piece of Home occurs both in Korea and in the US. To separate the two, Ms. Watts relates the Korean scenes in past tense, but then switches to present tense in the US. To tie them together, she subtly points out similarities, most notably in the gardens.

Other Recent Books about Moving:

In a review in the New York Times Book Review, Maria Russo reviewed A Piece of Home and several other 2016 releases about moving, including

9781626720404_p0_v1_s118x184Before I Leave, Jessixa Bagley (Neal Porter/Roaring Brook), about a hedgehog who moves from his anteater friend

9781580896122_p0_v2_s118x184I’m New Here, Anne Sibley O’Brien (Charlesbridge, 2015) follows three recent immigrants who struggle to adapt and fit in at their new school in the US. Ms. Sibley has created a website, imyourneighborbooks.org, that showcases “children’s books and reading projects building bridges between ‘new arrivals’ and ‘long-term communities.’”

9780763678340_p0_v1_s118x184The Seeds of Friendship, Michael Foreman (Candlewick Press, 2015), is about a boy who immigrates to England and finds solace, and friendship, by planting gardens

9780544432284_p0_v4_s192x300My Two Blankets, Irena Kobald & Freya Blackwood (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014), uses an old and new blanket as metaphors for language and the acquisition of a new language in a new home.