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misspippireads's review
2.0
Gardens sometimes last longer than the people you tend them. People move away and have to leave their garden. To keep it going another friend needs to step in and tend it. Themes include gardening but also neighbors moving away.
Reviewed from a library copy.
Reviewed from a library copy.
rbumpass001's review against another edition
5.0
the message of community and leaving something better than you found it really warms my heart. A nice story time book for elementary kids
heetlibrarian's review
2.0
I absolutely loved the illustrations in this book, but that was about it. The length of the book would be more suited to preschool/kindergarten age, and the idea that the neighbor moves away in the middle of the book may be too sad for some kids.
bookswithgin's review
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
pwbalto's review
4.0
When I was a child, our neighbors had a gorgeous garden. A circle of rosebushes, giant perennials, flowering hedges, and a full vegetable garden. The husband experimented with hybrids, and succeeded in creating a new azalea, which he named after his wife. It's a pretty orange with raspberry spots, and my parents still have one or two in their garden.
Those neighbors have been gone, oh, twenty years now, and unfortunately their gardens have waned in size and vigor with each succeeding tenant of that house. A few years ago, the latest owners ripped it up entirely. In one afternoon. My mother called everyone in the neighborhood. People came with buckets and wheelbarrows and baskets to salvage Thelma's peonies, Ralph's daylilies, gigantic hostas and rare irises. It was a tragedy, to be sure, especially since those owners didn't last two years in that little house, but I like to think of the descendants of Ralph and Thelma's lovingly cultivated plants thriving in the yards of people who remember them fondly, and people who never knew them.
So I'm going to buy this book for my mother for Mother's Day. She taught me how to garden, and how to look at plants, and she has created landscapes and pockets and shields and beds and one of my fondest wishes is that my kids and I will have the energy to maintain all that beauty when it is our turn.
Those neighbors have been gone, oh, twenty years now, and unfortunately their gardens have waned in size and vigor with each succeeding tenant of that house. A few years ago, the latest owners ripped it up entirely. In one afternoon. My mother called everyone in the neighborhood. People came with buckets and wheelbarrows and baskets to salvage Thelma's peonies, Ralph's daylilies, gigantic hostas and rare irises. It was a tragedy, to be sure, especially since those owners didn't last two years in that little house, but I like to think of the descendants of Ralph and Thelma's lovingly cultivated plants thriving in the yards of people who remember them fondly, and people who never knew them.
So I'm going to buy this book for my mother for Mother's Day. She taught me how to garden, and how to look at plants, and she has created landscapes and pockets and shields and beds and one of my fondest wishes is that my kids and I will have the energy to maintain all that beauty when it is our turn.
readingthroughtheages's review against another edition
4.0
Don't miss the author's note at the beginning of the story.
rhodesee's review against another edition
4.0
A lovely book about caring for the Earth and each other featuring an intergenerational relationship.
agudenburr's review against another edition
3.0
A cute story about how gardens last longer than neighbors.