My Busy Green Garden

TERRY PIERCE (Ridgecrest, CA) was a Montessori teacher for 22 years before writing children’s books. Her 18 books include Tae Kwon Do! (Bank Street College Best Children’s Books of 2007); Blackberry Banquet; Mother Goose Rhymes (a 2007 AEP Distinguished Achievement Award Winner) and My Busy Green Garden. She is an instructor in the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. CAROL SCHWARTZ has illustrated more than 50 picture books, including My Busy Green Garden, which Kirkus called “a lovely literary and artistic rendering.” Her other books include Sea Squares (an Outstanding Science Trade Book and Children’s Choice award winner), The Maiden of Northland (an Aesop Accolade List book), and Thinking about Ants (an Outstanding Science Trade Book). Carol taught illustration at Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design and has shared her passion for illustrating at the hundreds of elementary schools, libraries, conferences, and colleges she has visited.

"This action-filled cumulative rhyme deftly tells the story of a vibrant summer garden. A long view from the gated entrance to the garden portrays a neatly landscaped area hosting an array of busy backyard animals and insects. The next page zooms in on "a surprise / in clever disguise / that hangs in my busy green garden." Each subsequent scene introduces another member of the garden community (inchworm, praying mantis, dragonfly, ants, grasshopper, and chickadee), building the narrative with a rhythmic cadence that flows delightfully, offers a rich vocabulary and adds to the fluidity of the story. "This is a hummingbird fluttering ''round / the hurrying honeybee buzzing below / the red spotted ladybug dawdling so, / near the surprise / in clever disguise / that hangs in my busy green garden." Meticulously realistic, lush paintings in garden-bright colors will have children poring over the pages to identify each new pollinator or creature that participates in a blooming garden. Children will be pleased to conclude that the surprise is a hanging pupa ready to open and will recognize the arrival of a butterfly. Repeated readings will be welcomed for the opportunities to look for the clever caterpillar and its changing chrysalis. A postscript outlines the natural role each living thing plays. A lovely literary and artistic rendering. (Picture book. 4-6) "