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The Gardener

by Sarah Stewart and David Small
38 pages / 1997

Lydia Grace Finch’s family has fallen on hard times. So their little girl is being sent off to the big city to live with her baker uncle Jim to help him around the shop.

The story is told via Lydia’s short letters home, where she updates the family on her efforts at making her somber uncle smile. She’s also, as the title indicates, quite the gardener, an interest she shares with her grandma back home. One of the care packages from her grandma even contains little plants that amazingly survive the postal trip.

Though she’s living in her uncle’s apartment, Lydia fills everything she can with plants, and finds room on the roof to create her own secret garden. Will all her flowery beauty manage to prompt a smile from her uncle?

This is a sweet story, and the art fills every corner of every page. Two thumbs way up!

If you liked this, you’ll also enjoy three others by David Small.

One Cool Friend is about a boy, Elliot, and his father visiting the aquarium. When the boy spots a penguin exhibit, he asks his dear old dad for one. Dad thinks he means a stuffed one, and says yes. But Elliot did not. The confusion continues as Elliot takes a smallish one home in his backpack and turns his room into an antarctic setting. Fun throughout, with a twist at the end just for parents (as I don’t know that kids will catch this last joke).

In Imogene’s Antlers, a girl is surprised to wake up one morning with a set of antlers on her head. It doesn’t phase her, though, and she runs with it, using them to dry laundry and hang donuts. It’s her optimistic outlook that makes this such fun. In the sequel, Imogene Comes Back, her antlers are gone, but now she has a giraffe neck, and the next day an elephant nose… and she’s still as upbeat as ever!

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Book Reviews, Children’s picture books

Who's on First?

by Bud Abbott and Lou Costello illustrated by John Martz 40 pages / 2013 If you've ever seen the ol' Abbott and Costello "Who's on First" routine, then to "sell" this book to you all I need to share is that this is a faithful rendition. The comedians have taken the role of a bear and a rabbit, the colors are all bright and bold and the script is straight from the 60+ year old original. If you've never heard the "Who's on First" routine, then a word of explanation might be due. In this comedic bit Costello asks Abbott about his baseball team. But poor Costello gets a mite confused because the baseball team has some unusual names. The first baseman, for example, has the name "Who." So when Costello wants to know "Who's on first?" the unsatisfactory answer he gets from Abbott is "Exactly." The gives you a taste of what this is all about. (I did my own homage to this routine when I had to create an illustration for an article about how only boys - not girls - have the Y chromosome). I read this to my five year old and she got parts of it, but I would say this is probably best suited for the 7+ crowd. I was trying to think of any cautions I could add and the only think I could come up with is that there is a bit of yelling in the book so this might not be one to read to a rambunctious lad. It is a great fun book that is sure to get some giggles out of your little ones. I'd recommend this as a great one to get from the library rather than own, since it is based on a joke, and jokes don't stand up to repeated reads quite like good stories do. But it is a very good joke and wonderfully executed. ...