Our Community Garden

by Barbara Pollak

Overview

If you could plant a garden that would represent your personality, what would it include? Maybe cherry tomatoes, green peppers, and delicious strawberries? Audrey Aubergine and her friends do just that in their neighborhood’s community garden, where they play hide-and-seek, tend giant sunflowers, and discover nature’s possibilities.

Charmingly illustrated in a folk art style, this heartfelt story captures the excitement of children getting their hands dirty and learning to nurture living things for the first time. A celebration of different cultures and a gentle reminder of the value of people working together, Our Community Garden will appeal to all ages.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781582701097
Publisher:	Aladdin/Beyond Words
Publication date:	08/01/2004
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	77,394
Product dimensions:	9.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.30(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Barbara Pollak is an illustrator, animator, and writer who specializes in children and teen markets. She has created illustrations for Girls' Life, Scholastic, and Rodale Press. Recently she illustrated the popular book Girl Stuff for Harcourt Brace and the preteen fiction series Dish.

Editorial Reviews

"Pollak's quirky, vibrant artwork adds pizzazz to this straightforward story.... If the characters' enjoyment in gardening doesn't convince some youngsters to try raising plants themselves, the splendid feast at the end may at least encourage them to taste some unfamiliar vegetable dishes."
—School Library Journal

From the Publisher

PreS-Gr 3-Audrey lives in San Francisco, where she and her friends have plots in a community garden. They plant, weed, and water to raise their favorite vegetables: Tomas grows tomatillos for salsa, Alison nurtures asparagus beans for a stir-fry with tofu, and Audrey cultivates eggplants. After the harvest, the children make delicious dishes from their produce and the community gathers for a feast. Pollak's quirky, vibrant artwork adds pizzazz to this straightforward story. Some illustrations depict gardening tools or insects, while others use a more whimsical, folk-art style. A girl peers through stalks of asparagus taller than she is. Insects as large as gliders hover above children counting them. The flat perspective and boldly colored backgrounds add to the visual appeal. Compared with the plants and insects, the human faces have a bland, almost cookie-cutter appearance, distinguished mainly by variations in skin color and hairstyle. If the characters' enjoyment in gardening doesn't convince some youngsters to try raising plants themselves, the splendid feast at the end may at least encourage them to taste some unfamiliar vegetable dishes.-Kathy Piehl, Minnesota State University, Mankato Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal