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Title: The Gardener by Sarah Stewart, Bonnie Kelly-Young, David Small ISBN: 0-87499-431-4 Publisher: Live Oak Media Pub. Date: 01 January, 1998 Format: Audio Cassette Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (27 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A wonderful "letter" format for young children
Comment: The Gardener is now our favorite book. My three sons love to look at the wonderful illustrations. I love to garden and I have enjoyed teaching them. My children love to hear the letters Lydia writes to her family, which tell the story. In today's world, letter writing is becoming a thing of the past. Most of all, we love the ending - showing the love Lydia and her uncle developed for each other. It makes me cry every time I read it.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Beautiful Collection of Letters
Comment: Lydia Grace is not only a gardener, but a writer of letters. This lovely book is a collection of her precious letters to beloved family members, and through them her story unfolds. David Small's simple but powerful illustrations bring Sarah Stewart's story of this brave little girl to life. What a great combination of author and illustrator. Be sure to read "The Library", as well.
Rating: 5
Summary: Grow for me
Comment: There are good David Small books and there are bad David Small books. Good David Small books are usually (though by no means always) written AND illustrated by David Small himself. Bad or poorly created David Small books are usually written by someone else, using Mr. Small's talents as a kind of afterthought. The exception to this rule (and all rules, as you well know, must have exceptions) is the pairing of David Small and his wife Sarah Stewart. After creating the fabulous "Money Tree" and the bibliophilic, but somewhat disturbing, "The Library", the two combined their talents yet again to write a gentle story of love, gardening, and family.
The year: 1935, and Lydia Grace Finch is being sent from the country to go live with her Uncle Jim in the city. Lydia Grace faces this challenge with resolve and a little sadness. After all, she is leaving her family behind, the effects of the Great Depression having taken their toll. The city is a gray dirty place and Uncle Jim is kind but he never smiles. Soon, it's Spring again and Lydia has found a place to call her own (the building's abandoned roof). Her number one goal is to get Uncle Jim to smile, and she's fairly certain that the answer to this goal is just around the corner.
What Stewart and Small have accomplished here is an evocative sense of metropolitan dank and pastoral greenery. The pictures are deeply moving sometimes, and gently humorous others. One picture that particularly took by breath away was the shot of Lydia Grace standing in the train station alone. She is singled out, a blue dress wearing, green hat donning, red-haired little girl. The rest of the scene is all gray slashes of people walking in the distance and filthy light streaming through huge windows overhead. It's a gorgeous picture. Uncle Jim is just the right companion for the spunky little heroine too, looking like nothing so much as a 1930s version of Gene Shalit (sans the hair). What I appreciated most about this story was that it accepted the fact that some people in this world express their emotions and feelings differently from others. Not to give anything away, but Uncle Jim never smiles. And you wouldn't want him to either. Human beings can place importance in other things, like hard work and discipline. Uncle Jim is one such person.
If I have any objections to this book at all, it comes at the expense of Lydia Grace herself. This is a wonderful character and a great gal, this is not a child. David Small has, for reasons best known to himself, drawn a girl that looks like nothing so much as a shrunken adult. I've never had this objection to any of Mr. Small's characters before, so it was a bit of a shock to me to have such an objection now. Just the same, the eloquent story and excellent evocative scenes more than make up for a flaw that, let's admit it, probably only I could see.
Gardeners get short shrift in books, especially books for kids (unless you count stories like, "The Carrot Seed"). In this particular case, I think anyone,regardless of whether or not they can tell a petunia from a tulip, will enjoy this book. Its pace is a little slower and quieter than that found in other picture books, but for some kids it's just the right combination of simplicity and sweetness.
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Title: The Library by Sarah Stewart, David Small ISBN: 0374343888 Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux Pub. Date: 10 April, 1995 List Price(USD): $16.50 |
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Title: Officer Buckle and Gloria (Caldecott Medal Book, 1996) by Peggy Rathmann ISBN: 0399226168 Publisher: Putnam Pub Group Juv Pub. Date: September, 1995 List Price(USD): $16.99 |
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Title: The Money Tree by Sarah Stewart, David Small ISBN: 0374452954 Publisher: Sunburst Pub. Date: 01 April, 1994 List Price(USD): $6.95 |
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Title: Joseph Had a Little Overcoat (Caldecott Medal Book, 2000) by Simms Taback ISBN: 0670878553 Publisher: Viking Childrens Books Pub. Date: October, 1999 List Price(USD): $15.99 |
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Title: The Journey by Sarah Stewart, David Small ISBN: 0374339058 Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux Pub. Date: 14 March, 2001 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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