Review by New York Times Review
SPRING IS (ALMOST) HERE. It's time to be thinking about your garden, if you have one. Even if you don't, thinking about gardens - renewal, growth, wildness, creativity - has its own reward. As three new picture books with dramatically varied styles of illustration show, a garden is an idea that can be approached from starkly different directions. A garden can be art: sculpture made from greenery. So it is in "The Night Gardener," a debut written and illustrated by the brothers Terry and Eric Fan, set in a gray town where green things are happening. Every morning the townspeople discover that another large tree has been reshaped into magnificent topiary. The vivid animal figures spark delight in this grim place. Young William, who lives in an orphanage but is apparently free to come and go, happens one evening upon the Night Gardener, a mysterious old man with a walrus mustache who (because this is William's book, or his fantasy) engages the boy as apprentice. In a marathon night of climbing and clipping, a park becomes a menagerie of giant, leafy creatures. As the depressed town turns celebratory, illustrations that started out monochrome go full-color. Then, in a riveting sequence of spreads, a green vista of sculpted animáis - giraffe, emu, rhinoceros - turns autumn-colored and finally reverts to plain, bare-branched trees. The townspeople were never the same, says the text, and neither was William. The lesson: You don't have to live a dull life if you exercise your imagination. The message itself is none too new, or helpful. What's worth the admission in this book is in the illustrations. They use a realistic cross-hatched style that sits, if at times slightly awkwardly, halfway between traditional old engravings and the looser lines of more modern artists like Edward Ardizzone. Still, they achieve a lovely, luminous effect. Illustrator-authors often write themselves stories involving spectacular scenes of fantasy; it's understandable. Those scenes will be the lure for children, as the elaborate tree-animals are for William. Real topiary couldn't be created from trees like this, but illustrators can do things that horticulturists can't. The gardens in "Tokyo Digs a Garden," written by Jon-Erik Lappano, are about abandoning control, not exercising it. The world of young, quirkily named Tokyo begins without a garden. It's a cramped urban landscape in which tall buildings have eaten up all signs of nature. In a strangely archaic moment, a mysterious old woman gives the boy three wishing seeds. He lifts a brick and pokes them into the ground, and soon the city is engulfed in forests. Monkeys swing from trees and ruined roads turn to rivers where salmon jump. The result is a kind of Eden, but the buildings are still part of it. Tokyo's worried grandfather ponders, "What are we going to do?" "I think," Tokyo says, "that we will just have to get used to it." This moral, too, about living harmoniously with nature, is heavy-handed, and the explosive reforestation the book presents is alarming. But the text attempts some levity with Tokyo's ice-cream-craving cat, and the final picture also soothes a bit: a scene of a row of houses with colorful vegetation on roofs and balconies. "Gardens have to grow somewhere, after all," the narrator says. For a parable about wildness, Kellen Hatanaka's illustrations take an unlikely approach: They're elegant and midcentury modern, all bold, flat shapes, crisp edges and beautiful colors. Abstraction prevails, to the point where Hatanaka's stylized faces lack features like eyes and noses. But the pictures are also full of energy, popping colors and some sly humor, if you look. Little children's eyes may fill in the modernist blanks and see the sprawling richness implied in the text. Older children might well appreciate the sophisticated design. Adults who like artistic picture books should take to this one - I find it a thing of beauty. Beautiful in a very different way, "Stories From Bug Garden" comprises 11 tiny stories by Lisa Moser describing the lives of bugs in an abandoned plot of land - no mysterious old person in this book stirring up magical transformations. You can see from Gwen Millward's doodly cover drawing that the bugs in question will be winsome cuties and not those things that bite and swarm and ruin your plantings. This garden may be wild, but its function is recreational. There's a bee, a horsefly, a butterfly, a couple of ants, a worm and more, but they're really toddlers in a playground: They swing on a gate, try to get a peach down from a tree, float a makeshift boat on a pond. Compactly told in short lines, these pieces are part beginning-reader stories and part poetry. In spirit they remind me of Arnold Lobel's wonderful Frog and Toad books. I loved the nine-line-long episode in which Bee sits on a branch, watching clouds, rejecting the others' suggested activities. "What do you want to do, then?" they ask, allowing the final line to be "'Just be,' said Bee." The stories aren't all successful - some stray too far from reality (when friends gather to watch flowers explode into bloom, it's like fireworks, but flowers don't do that). Yet even when flawed, these tales carry a sense of purpose, of meaning more than what's apparent. At their best they feel like little puffs of wisdom. Millward's watercolor, ink and pencil drawings highlight the stories' whimsy; her google-eyed characters and obsessive, scribbly vegetation add up to a rousing expression of cheer. In the profusion of leaves and flowers, there's a missed opportunity to reward close viewers with amusing details, but maybe next time. It all looks great, anyway, particularly considering that her color palette consists largely of light greens and bright oranges, hues that standard printing inks can never reproduce with full vibrancy. While all three of these books celebrate the stirring of life in some way, they represent about the widest variety of garden experiences I can imagine. Put together, they spell out the true meaning of garden variety. PAUL O. ZELINSKY has illustrated many books for children and won the 1998 Caldecott Medal for his "Rapunzel."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [February 7, 2016]
Review by Booklist Review
Diverse insects discover a new dwelling in this delightful collection of interconnected vignettes featuring free verse and charming illustrations. The opening poem, The Garden, sets the scene: an old and forgotten garden with no one to sit among the flowers until Ladybug, Snail, Earthworm, and others move in. The following pieces highlight their diverse antics, interactions, and experiences. For example, Horsefly and Butterfly discuss names and characteristics (You're not a horse, says Butterfly; Well, you're not butter, either, sniffs Horsefly). Bee, in repose, considers the clouds with zenlike wordplay: Just be. Finally, it's bug bedtime under the moonlit sky in The Garden Again, which reassuringly notes, it wasn't forgotten / anymore / because they all called it / Home. Moser's read-aloud-friendly text is well matched by Millward's vibrant watercolors, which nicely blend the cartoonish, fanciful, and evocative elements from varying perspectives. In one scene, bugs, among cool-hued flower buds, excitedly anticipate their blooming, revealed in the following spread as a glorious, vivid, fireworkslike show. From lively to lyrical, in both the stories and art, there's plenty to enjoy, amuse, and contemplate.--Rosenfeld, Shelle Copyright 2016 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In 13 poetic stories, Moser (Kisses on the Wind) and Millward (How Do You Hug a Porcupine?) take readers on a whimsical jaunt into a garden buzzing with anthropomorphic insects, including Lightning Bug (who "never ever won at hide-and-go-seek, but... was the all-time champion of follow-the-leader) and Ladybug, who prefers running barefoot and playing in the mud to acting "ladylike." Playful language and exchanges dominate. "You know you're not a horse," Butterfly tells Horsefly as he gallops from flower to flower. "Well, you're not butter, either," retorts Horsefly. Elsewhere, a dazzling, firework-like display of blooming flowers is met with "Ooohhhs" and "Aaahhhs" from the assembled bugs, and Cricket and Big Ant argue over how to reach a peach, only to discover that letting the wind do the work might be best. Millward's naïve-styled, softly colored ink-and-watercolor illustrations lend quiet humor to the stories, giving the diminutive characters expressive eyes and sweet smiles. This pleasurable read will win over preschoolers and parents alike as it offers gentle reflections on persistence, pleasure, and perspective. Ages 4-8. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 2-Discover the inhabitants of the garden through lyrical vignettes featuring all of its residents, from a horsefly who dreams of looking like a horse and a ladybug who would rather make mud angels than sip tea and sit up tall to a bee who is content to settle back and watch the clouds and the greatest cricket explorer in the world. The bugs join together to watch a fireworks show of blooming flowers and to figure out how to reach a peach in the tree. "The garden was old,./But it wasn't forgotten/ anymore/because they called it/Home." These funny and friendly tales will have readers looking at bugs in a new way. The colorful and charming ink, watercolor, and pencil illustrations cleverly depict the backyard denizens. VERDICT A unique look at a garden's smallest residents that's sure to please readers.-Sarah Polace, Cuyahoga Public Library System, OH © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
An abandoned garden is the setting for joyful play by an array of small creatures. Prose poems, set on or next to doodly, delicate drawings, introduce this garden's inhabitants, whose activities will appeal to young readers and listeners. Ladybug, barefoot, whistles with a blade of grass; Horsefly pretends he has flashing hooves and a streaming tail; Cricket, the great explorer, swings on a gate. Bee just wants to watch the clouds. Together with Butterfly, Dragonfly, Big and Little Ant, and Snail, they gather to watch the explosion of flowers blooming. Later, Lightning Bug leads a game of follow-the-leader. The scribbly pen-and-pencil illustrations, finished with watercolor, reveal amusing detail. After rolling all the way down the path, Roly-Poly unrolls and waves his many legs. At night, Lightning Bug watches over his friendsbut Butterfly has one eye open, too. These engaging, childlike illustrations vary in size and placement on the page; double-page spreads invite particular attention. Moser introduces some unusual vocabulary but keeps most of her text simple and playful. Cricket and Big Ant seek the best way to reach a peach: at the "top of the hop" or "bottom of the drop"? The reveal comes on the next page: "KER PLOP!" Earthworm's poem has a wormlike curve. With plentiful dialogue, these short scenes will be fun to read aloud. Whimsical and delightful, a celebration of imagination. (Picture book. 4-8) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
