My Garden

by Kevin Henkes

In a whimsical flight of fancy, a little girl helping her mother in the garden imagines... read more

In a whimsical flight of fancy, a little girl helping her mother in the garden imagines what her own ideal garden would be like. It would have flowers that could change colors and patterns, and that would grow back as soon as you picked them. The rabbits in her garden wouldn’t eat the plants “because the rabbits would be chocolate and I would eat them. ” A jelly bean bush, tomatoes “as big as beach balls,” invisible carrots (“because I don’t like carrots”) and morning glories “shining like stars” would be in her garden, but so would buttons and umbrellas, rusty keys, and other unusual things. Joyful illustrations combine circular images on the story’s opening and concluding pages that show the little girl working in her real garden, with full-page images in between that explode with her colorful imaginings, one of which inspires her to plant a seashell in her family garden at story’s end. “Who knows what might happen?” Highly Commended, 2011 Charlotte Zolotow Award (Ages 3–6)

© Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 2011

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