Great picture books to get kids interested in gardening
Want to instill a love of gardening in little children? Here are some fun, colorful picture books to get kids interested.
Spark your child's interest in gardening with a fun and fanciful picture book.
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I have a new granddaughter arriving soon. That much-anticipated event and early signs of spring have me summoning up my earlier career as a librarian. It鈥檚 time to get this baby鈥檚 bookcase filled 鈥� with books about the garden, of course.
There are many fine picture books for young children 鈥� see list that follows 鈥� but I鈥檓 starting with my two favorites: Barbara Cooney鈥檚 and Peter Brown's In addition to the authors also being the illustrators, the books have a similar theme: gardens make the world better.
, who died in 2000, is among the most celebrated American children鈥檚 book author-illustrators and the winner of two Caldecott Medals, the annual prize given for the 鈥渕ost distinguished American picture book.鈥� "Miss Rumphius" won the National Book Award in 1983.
Calling the story one of 鈥渢he closest to her heart,鈥� Cooney writes of a little girl who sets three goals for when she grows up: to visit faraway places, to come home and live by the sea, and to do something to make the world more beautiful.
She eventually fulfills all three goals, but it is the third, making the world more beautiful, that is the most difficult. Until, that is, she discovers that the wind has spread the seeds of her and decides to help nature by sowing lupine seeds wherever she walks until there are so many blooms that she becomes known as the Lupine Lady.
It鈥檚 a warm, charming story, gloriously illustrated in acrylic and color pencil. A classic.
, with four picture books under his belt, promises to have a notable career. "The Curious Garden" is a fictional account of the wonderful new garden 鈥� High Line Park 鈥� that has been created on an abandoned elevated railway over lower .
In Brown鈥檚 version, a curious young boy named Liam discovers struggling plants on a rail bed and decides to help them grow. In time, the plants take on a life of their own, spread throughout the city, and transform it from gray to green.
And new gardeners pop up as well as new plants. Like the Lupine Lady, Liam not only makes the world more beautiful, he illustrates what a difference one gardener can make. Lively illustrations done in acrylic and gouache. A new classic.
If you鈥檙e looking to fill a bookcase, consider the following titles, all picture books written for young children. Many are available in paperback and as board books as well as in hardcover. (And if you have favorite books to interest kids in gardening, do mention them in a comment below.)
鈥� by Krauss, Ruth.
鈥� by Sarah Stewart and David Small.
鈥� by DyAnne DiSalvo-Ryan
鈥� by Andrew Larsen and Irene Luxbacher.
鈥� by Lois Ehlert.
鈥� by Linda White.
鈥� by Eve Bunting and Kathryn Hewett.
鈥� by Eve Bunting and Kathryn Hewett.
鈥� by Aliki.
Karan Davis Cutler is one of nine garden writers who blog regularly at Diggin鈥� It. She's a former magazine editor and newspaper columnist and the author of scores of garden articles and more than a dozen books, including 鈥淏urpee - The Complete Flower Gardener鈥� and 鈥淗erb Gardening for Dummies.鈥� She now struggles to garden in the unyieldingly dense clay of Addison County, Vt., on the shore of Lake Champlain, where she is working on a book about gardening to attract birds and other wildlife.
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