Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
Eddie’s Garden and how to make things grow
Illustrator: Sarah Garland
Picture Book
For ages 4 to 7
Frances Lincoln, 2004 ISBN: 978-1845070151
Eddie would like to have a garden of his own and Mum, being a kind person, agrees to help him create one. So, Eddie, Mum and Eddie’s little sister Lily, go to the garden center to get seeds, earth, and some flowerpots. Mum teaches Eddie and Lily that flowers need food, water, air, and sun to grow. Soon the three of them are preparing the ground planting peas, planting flower seeds in pots, making a bean den, and watering their seeds.
Of course the children have to be patient for a while after this, waiting for their seeds to sprout and then, at last, Lily’s pumpkin seed grows up into the sunshine. All the other vegetables and flowers soon follow suit. Now Eddie has even more work to do caring for his garden and helping Lily take care of hers.
This story is not just a simple and sympathetic account of a little boy who creates a garden, it is also a guide which will help and encourage readers to plant a garden of their own. It provides information and encouragement, and through the text and the soft warm illustrations it shows the reader how wonderful creating a garden is. A garden gives a child the chance to make something beautiful and something useful and it connects that child with nature on a very personal level.
At the back of the book the author has included instructions on how to grow the plants that Eddie grows in his garden. In addition she describes in detail how to prepare the earth, how to plant seeds, how to grow plants in containers and indoors, what kinds of pests one might have to deal with, and what kinds of things to be careful of.
