Gardening

Arts and Crafts and the Garden

	In Laurence Anholt’s The Magical Garden of Claude Monet (Barron’s Educational Series, 2007), young Julie is taken to Giverny to visit the marvelous garden of the famous impressionist artist Claude Monet. There she goes for a boat ride on the water-lily pond and sees Monet’s new waterlily painting. For ages 5-10.
	Also by Anholt in the same series, see Van Gogh and the Sunflowers (Barron’s Educational Series, 2007).
	Cristina Bjork’s Linnea in Monet’s Garden (R & S Books, 1987) is a delightful combination of art history and gardens, told in the first person by Linnea, a black-haired moppet in a straw hat and white pinafore. Linnea and her friend Mr. Bloom visit Monet’s garden in Giverny where they picnic beside the waterlily pond. Illustrations include period photographs of Claude Monet and reproductions of his paintings. For ages 7-12.
	In Andrew Larsen’s The Imaginary Garden (Kids Can Press, 2009), Poppa – Theo’s grandfather – has moved to a city apartment. Since he misses his garden, Theo proposes that they paint an “imaginary garden.” Together they set up a huge canvas on the apartment balcony, don straw gardening hats, and create a masterpiece. For ages 4 and up.
	In C.M. Millen’s The Ink Garden of Brother Theophane (Charlesbridge Publishing, 2010), nature-loving Brother Theophane is set to boiling bark to make brown ink for copying scholarly books. He also experiments with berries, leaves, and flowers, making an array of wonderful rainbow-colored inks which he and his brother monks are soon using to make illuminated manuscripts, beautifully decorated with flowers, vines, fruits, and leaves. The illustrations have elaborate borders and heavy black lines reminiscent of stained-glass windows. For ages 5-9.
	At Illuminated Manuscripts, visitors can make their own illuminated manuscript pages online.
	Also see resources at The Middle Ages.
	Build a fairy garden! A fairy garden is an imaginative miniature garden, made from natural objects such as sticks, stones, pinecones, shells, and acorns, or designed as a dollhouse-sized landscape in a container. See Go Explore Nature for instructions and suggestions.
	In Tracy Kane’s Fairy Houses (Light Beams Publishing, 2001), Kristen, while vacationing with her parents in Maine, discovers a village of tiny houses that people have built of natural materials in the woods. She builds one of her own, and is lucky enough to see some visiting fairies. For ages 4-8.
	Everything Preschool has a list of garden-based craft projects for the very young, among them growing your name in grass seed, making a paper-plate sunflower, and making a sand-dough garden stone.
	Dawn Isaac’s Garden Crafts for Children (CICO Books, 2012) is a 128-page collection of creative projects and ideas, among them planting a wheelbarrow garden, turning unusual objects (rain boots, teapots) into flowerpots, and making garden-themed picture frames and mobiles. Illustrated with photographs. For ages 3-11.
	Artists Helping Children has a long and creative list of garden-related art projects for kids. Among these are an ice-cream-spoon flowerbed, handprint flowers, cupcake-wrapper flowers, make-your-own seed packets, and floral pop-up cards.
	By Monica Wellington, Color & Garden Vegetables and Color & Garden Flowers (Dover Publications) are garden-themed coloring books featuring Lucy and Sam.

Garden Poems

	David L. Harrison’s Farmer’s Garden (Boyds Mills Press, 2003) is a simple collection of poems for two voices: one a curious dog, the other the animals and plants who inhabit the farmer’s garden – among them a worm, a bunny, a chicken, a deer, a carrot, and a strawberry. For ages 3-6.
	Juanita Havill’s I Heard It From Alice Zucchini (Chronicle Books, 2006) is a wonderful collection of garden poems, among them “Pea Pod Chant,” “Blue Moon Over the Garden,” “Light Bulbs” (a creative take on how earthworms find their way around underground), “The Pumpkin’s Revenge” (find out what happened to Cinderella’s coach), and “Buried” (the saga of a left-behind potato). For ages 5-12.
	Edited by Barbara Brenner, The Earth Is Painted Green (Byron Priess Publications, 2000) is a collection of 90 green poems by such well-known poets as Carl Sandburg, Vachel Lindsay, Ted Hughes, David McCord, Eve Merriam, and X.J. Kennedy. For ages 5-12.
	Edited by John Hollander, Garden Poems (Everyman’s Library, 1996) is a wonderful 250+-page assortment of literary classics, including such works as “Lines Written in Kensington Gardens” by Matthew Arnold, “My Garden” by Ralph Waldo Emerson, “A Winter Eden” by Robert Frost, “Spring in the Garden” by Edna St. Vincent Millay, and “The Doomed Garden” by Octavio Paz. For ages 13 and up.
	Check out Hollander’s concrete poem Garden Sundial. How about a garden-themed concrete poem project?