: For Students, Faculty, and Staff
There is a couple feet of snow outside my front door yet I just got a reference request for my favorite picture books about gardening.
If I was forced to pick my favorite book about gardening it would have to be John Coy’s Two Old Potatoes and Me. This is a terrific read aloud that gives factual information as well as a resonating story of a girl and her dad.
Nodin Press (paperback reprint, May 15, 2013)
Readers to Eaters, 2016
From the Publisher
Will Allen is no ordinary farmer. A former basketball star, he’s as tall as his truck, and he can hold a cabbage–or a basketball–in one hand. But what is most special about Farmer Will is that he can see what others can’t see. When he looked at an abandoned city lot in Milwaukee he saw a huge table, big enough to feed the whole world.
No space, no problem. Poor soil, there’s a solution. Need help, found it. Farmer Will is a genius in solving problems. In 2008, the MacArthur Foundation named him one for his innovative urban farming methods, including aquaponics and hydroponics.
Jacqueline Briggs Martin, author of the Caldecott Medal winner,Snowflake Bentley, andAlice Waters and the Trip to Delicious, along with debut artist Eric-Shabazz Larkin’s striking artwork, tells the inspiring story of the African American innovator, educator, and community builder.
Farmer Will Allen is the first book of Martin’s Food Heroes series, followed byAlice Waters and the Trip to Delicious. In 2015, it was selected by Points of Light Foundation to set a new Guinness World Record for the most children reading the same book across the globe to promote literacy. Nearly 300,000 participated.
Charlesbridge, 1999
“While the gardens in her suburban community look like “rainbows of flowers,” and “the wind always smelled sweet,” the unnamed narrator is disappointed with her family’s Chinese vegetable garden. All she sees are “lumpy,” “icky yellow,” and “thin and green” vegetables, and she wonders why her family doesn’t grow flowers instead.” Hornbook
Ehlert’s crisp graphics are celebration of color for the very young child just beginning to explore the garden. HMH, 1988.
FSG, 2017
Kirkus Reviews starred (April 1, 2017)
Horn Book Guide (Fall 2017)
This fantastical vision of a little girl’s garden that grows fewer hollyhocks and more chocolate bunnies.
Thanks for including Farmer Will Allen and the Growing Table on this wonderful list, Lisa.
This really is a time to spend time with gardening books.