Gardening Book for Children
Recommending Books for Children Fall 2010
by Colleen Miko, CPH | www.colleenmiko.com
|
Toad Cottages & Shooting Stars: Grandma’s Bag of Tricks, Sharon Lovejoy, 2010. Workman Publishing, 205 pages, $14.95 (paperback). |
Roots, Shoots, Buckets & Boots: Activities To Do in the Garden, Sharon Lovejoy, 1999. Workman Publishing, 159 pages, $13.95 (paperback).
|
A Child’s Garden: 60 Ideas to Make any Garden Come Alive for Children, Molly Dannenmaier, 2008. Timber Press, Inc., 176 pages, $19.95 (paperback). |
Don’t Throw it, Grow it!, Deborah Peterson & Millicent Selsam, 2008. Storey Publishing, 153 pages, $10.95 (paperback).
|
Wiggling Worms at Work, Wendy Pfeffer, 2003. Harper-Collins, 40 pages, $5.99 (paperback). |
Our fall and winter seasons, with all the curl-up-and-read time, are perfect for indoor nature projects or planning the spring garden with children. Books by Sharon Lovejoy, grandma extraordinaire, are chock full of clever year round activities. Roots, Shoots, Buckets & Boots and Toad Cottages & Shooting Stars make it easy for children to get in touch with nature and find their own place in the garden. The photographs are sweet; the illustrations award winning. Many of the ideas are suitable for inclusion in landscape plans and will appeal to a range of ages.
A Child’s Garden is a guide for parents and landscape professionals who wish to create gardens with more kid appeal. The history of children’s gardens, the psychology of how children play and the features that encourage learning, make-believe and exercise are nicely covered. Included are inspiring, well-photographed examples of private and public gardens developed expressly for the enjoyment of young people. The garden elements to which children are naturally drawn are examined, as well as how to include them into the average home garden.
Don’t Throw it, Grow it! is a fun book for all ages of readers who enjoy growing things. With a little help, younger children can grow houseplants from table scraps, seeds and pits, and learn how fruits, vegetables, herbs and spices are grown. Easier projects include growing a plant from a water chestnut or sesame seeds. Instructions on how to grow 68 plants (indoors) from ordinary foods like peanut, potato and an avocado pit help kids understand the many ways plants reproduce themselves in the wild and where in the world our food originates. Cooks will be intrigued that many exotic foods are included, as are suggestions on where to find them.
Children, especially younger ones, are usually more intrigued with the animals that call the garden home, than they are with plants. Wiggling Worms at Work (for ages 4 to 8) illustrates how worms improve garden soil. Besides being good for story time, the book encourages first hand learning. Instructions on how to catch worms, examine them and watch what they do in a sample of soil are easy and entertaining.
Colleen Miko, July 2010
|
