Gardening is a great hobby, in fact, it’s the second largest hobby in the world with bird watching being the first. I recently visited a school that has a great gardening program for ages K- 9. The students have their hands in the dirt, harvest, preparation, and eating of it all! It’s a life skill that has been lost in recent decades along with home economics, wood shop, and other essential knowledge about life. In my opinion, Balancing A Checkbook would have been a better skill to achieve than Geometry, but that’s all water under the bridge.
Whether you’re an avid gardener or just want your kids and grandkids to have some idea of the science of gardening and where their food actually comes from – here are 5 great books that are skillfully written, beautifully presented and just a lot of fun!
Garden Time – By Jill McDonald
As part of the Hello World Series of books, this easy-to-understand book about gardening has facts about how plants grow and where our food comes from! The information about what gardens are, how seeds grow, pollination, the anatomy of plants, and what happens under the soil introduces complex concepts in simple terms. A great book for toddlers and parents alike.
The Gardener – by Sarah Stewart
It’s 1935, and Lydia Grace is living in the country with her parents and grandmother. Everybody is out of work and the decision has been made to send her to the city to live with her Uncle Jim until things get better. Lydia loves to garden with her grandmother and is concerned that this will be difficult in the city.
This book has so many wonderful qualities it’s difficult to know where to begin. Told entirely through letters, first to Uncle Jim about coming to live with him, and then to her mother and grandmother about her life in the city. This unique quality of narration serves its purpose well as her letters radiate her sunny disposition and determination in the face of a very difficult time.
The Night Gardener – by The Fan Brothers
This is a large and luxurious feeling book, about a very sad little town. The story begins in front of Grimloch Orphanage with sepia tones illustrations highlighting how sad everyone and everything looks and how disconnected they all seemed. But things change quickly as one morning William looks out of the orphanage window to a commotion below. When he raced out the door he discovered that someone had made the tree into a brilliant topiary sculpture of an owl.
Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt – by Kate Messner
Most of us can see what happens above ground in a garden. But what happens under that dirt? This book addresses that with a play on ‘up and down.’ Each sequence of the story starts with “Up in the garden,” and ends with “Down in the dirt.” It’s a really great way to solidify that what’s happening up above can’t be without what’s going on underground. It’s a great emphasis on the complexities of the garden ecosystem. This is a beautiful book, large and of great quality. You’ll read it again and again.
Slow Down And Be Here Now by Laura Brand
Though not just about gardening this is such a marvelous book I had to include it here. It’s about the small and tiny pieces of nature that we tend to overlook in our rush to be someplace else.
The author did a terrific job with facts and interesting trivia, all done with a delightful perspective on the tiniest of treasures. Focusing on the minutia in nature is something that is often missed because it’s so much easier to highlight the grandeur and largeness of the world. Don’t miss this book! You’ll pull it out and peruse each page with enthusiasm.