Growing: My Garden by Kevin Henkes

MY MOTHER'S GARDEN IS VERY NICE, BUT IF I HAD A GARDEN...

Grownups have learned that getting there is half the fun, but to a youngster, digging, weeding, watering, even chasing away hungry rabbits from the new lettuce is short on excitement. But if she had a garden....

An imaginative girl imagines her dream garden, one where sunflowers come up, not just a bright golden color, but in polka dots and plaid as well. A new blossom would instantly replace any she picked. Planting jellybeans would produce a huge jellybean bush, ripe for the harvest any time she wants. Her crops would be designer plants, producing buttons, seashells, and umbrellas, and birds and butterflies would fill the air with the humming of their wings. On the other hand, things she doesn't care for, like carrots, would just refuse to grow there!

And those pesky rabbits? Well, our gardening girl knows just what to do with them!

IN MY GARDEN, THE RABBITS DON'T EAT THE LETTUCE BECAUSE THE RABBITS WOULD BE CHOCOLATE, AND I WOULD EAT THEM.

Caldecott artist Kevin Henkes lays out his latest, My Garden (Greenwillow, 2010) in lusciously muted but glowing spring-like color, accented by his broad pen-and-ink line, this time executed in a dark blue which gives this book a different look from his wide black line in his Caldecott book Kitten's First Full Moon, giving the picture book reader an imaginative and sweet spring treat. "Mary, Mary, quite contrary" never had it so good.