Summer at Camp Mimi: Me, Toma, and the Concrete Garden by Andrew Larson

I'm staying with Mimi for most of the summer. My mom had an operation. She has to take it easy for a while.

Most everything is pretty gray around here. It doesn't look like much of a summer.

But Aunt Mimi is nice. She lets him pick the paint to make the spare room into his own space. But there are just gray apartments all around and a fenced-in concrete space below with some cast-off bike parts. And there's a box of dirt balls on Mimi's balcony.

Kind of weird, if you ask me. "Why do you have dirt balls out here?"

"They were from a secret admirer," Mimi says with a twinkle in her eye.

"Are you sure this person likes you?" I asked."They gave you a box of dirt!"

We both burst out laughing.

But when the boy spots a kid bouncing his ball against the wall of the lot, he grabs a bunch of dirt balls and heads downstairs to ask the boy if he wants to help toss the dirt balls over the fence, adding that his aunt will pay to get rid of them. The boy's name is Toma, and soon the two are busy tossing dirt balls and bouncing Toma's ball. Aunt Mimi rewards their efforts with money for treats from the ice cream truck. Soon the two meet each day to toss dirt balls and play.

One day a grumpy old neighbor man shouts at them for throwing things into the fenced area.

"Dirt balls!" I said.

"We're actually recycling them!" says Toma.

And while the boys' friendship grows, all kinds of flowers begin to sprout from their balls of dirt. Soon the other neighbors notice that inside the fence, a garden of blooming things is growing. Mr. Grumpypants brings out a hose to water the flowers, and noticing the difference, people begin toclean out the junk inside the fence. Suddenly the drab grayish space becomes a butterfly garden. People come to plant little garden patches and neighborhood kids come to play on the grass that grows there.

It's a pretty good summer after all at Aunt Mimi's, in Andrew Larson's Me, Toma and the Concrete Garden (Kids Can Press, 2019). Sometimes friendships just grow naturally from shared experiences, and Larson's gentle narration and artist Ann Villanueve's ink-and-watercolor illustrations portray the development of friendship and a bit of a community that grow from an unlikely gift. Says Booklist's starred review, "... a heartwarming story of serendipity and connection, both among people and with the environment."