Planting the Wild Garden

Most children know that domestic seeds are sown and cultivated by farmers, but how do wild plants grow and spread? In lighthearted prose punctuated with sound effects ("Per-chik-o-ree! Per-chik-o-ree!" cries a goldfinch) and enlivened with typographic curves and swoops, Galbraith (Arbor Day Square) explains that seeds from wild plants float in the wind, snap off plants, fall in the rain, and get carried--intentionally or unintentionally--by animals to new places where they sprout and thrive. "A family of raccoons feasts on blackberries.... When they amble home again, bits of berries and seeds go with them. Next spring, new prickly canes will pop up everywhere." Halperin's (My Father Is Taller Than a Tree) spreads are divided into contiguous panels tinted in the lightest of watercolors, with delicate pencil shading that conveys the force of wind and rain alike. Small natural dramas are writ large as she shows plants and seeds in tender closeups, the small panels complementing sweeping landscapes watered with rain, sparkling with stars, or glowing in the sunset--sometimes all at once. It's a thoroughly handsome book, suffused with calm. Ages 4-8. (Apr.)

Gr 2-4--No one "plants" a wild garden, but this attractive book, with its simple, often lyrical text and watercolors full of motion, shows how wild seeds make it in an unplanned world. A flock of goldfinches "bobbles" among the thistle-heads, a fox-chased rabbit scatters cockleburs as she flees, and a child blows on a dandelion--all dispersing seeds across the landscape. Galbraith's gentle words remind readers that wind, water, birds, animals, and people plant the wild meadow--"All of us. Together"--while Halperin's soft watercolors in pastel shades of peach and lavender, tan and green show young wonderers how it all happens. A shade more identification of some seeds (or their development stages) would be helpful, but, from the elegant seed-full endpapers to the carefully selected font, this is a lovely introduction to the modes of seed dispersal evolved by some common meadow plants.--Patricia Manning, formerly at Eastchester Public Library, NY