Tuesday Storytime: Gardening

Well, MOSTLY gardening.  I thought I had a third gardening book already set aside for this week, but turns out I didn't, so we used a new arrival (Summer Days and Nights) instead, and it worked out fine.  Next time around I'd like to have it more specifically gardening, but que sera and all that.


Summer Days and Nights
Wong Herbert Yee
ISBN: 9780805090879
A generic "Asian" family spends an idyllic day and evening with traditional summer activities.

Yee is best known to me because of his sweet and simple Fireman Small, which I use with nearly alarming frequency when I do firefighter or local hero storytime themes.  It's just so sweet and kind and endearing.  This book is a little more generic, but it's still a lovely story, nice and gentle and just perfect for bedtime.  Perhaps a bit too sweet and slow for storytime (especially with the size - this is a SMALL book: 6 inches tall and only about 8.5 wide, and most of the pictures aren't even the whole size of the pages. Our unnamed and un-gendered child wanders through a summer day, with requisite mentions of cats napping in the sunlight, iced lemonade, splashing in pools, picnics in the park, and catching butterflies.  What makes it slightly more interesting is the inclusion of nighttime scenes, and here is where the sub-theme of summertime life (most especially insect or small-animal life) is most pointed, as we see a mouse, owl, fireflies, crickets, and frogs outside in the evening before finally it's bedtime.


Lola Plants a Garden
Anna McQuinn, illustrated by Rosalind Beardshaw
ISBN: 9781580896948
Lola is a sweet Black child with a new and growing series of books about central child life topics.

McQuinn's Lola and Leo stories are generally very good for topical and child-interest storytimes.  As an aside, Lola is Lulu in the UK, where they're originally published.  For Lola, we have books about reading, and about interacting with baby siblings, and now about gardening, and we also have two featuring her little brother Leo (Zeki in the UK): Leo Loves Baby Time, and Leo Can Swim, for another set of important kid-friendly subjects.  I admit to being biased towards these simply because they feature Black children and families, and there are still too few of those books, and too few done by GOOD storytellers with GOOD illustrators.  I want people to know that just like girls and people of color learn to identify with all the millions of little white boys that feature as the heroes of stories, little white boys can do the same with a hero who is a girl, or a person of color.  It's a long slow slog, but I really feel like it's important to do as much as I can.  Soapbox over.  Lola is inspired by the nursery rhyme Mary Mary Quite Contrary, and with the help of her mom and dad, plants a flower garden, waits for it to grow, and then hosts a party for her little friends.  Simple, sweet, solid logical realistic activities.


If You Plant a Seed
Kadir Nelson
ISBN: 9780062298898
Previously reviewed here.

It worked out very well for storytime!  The little ones loved the bright active vibrant paintings, and the older kids were very intent on the story slowly unfolding with the turns of the pages.  I was very satisfied.