My Garden by Kevin Henkes

My Garden by Kevin Henkes

Rating: 3.5 stars

We're fans of Kevin Henkes, so we came across this book soon after it was released earlier this year.  It was Easter time, and we were all pretty tired of anything winter-related after one of the snowiest and coldest winters in a decade.  We were just getting into Henkes' great books, reading Owen and Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse and Weekend With Wendell and Chrysanthemum again and again and again.  When I spotted this one, with a gorgeous cover full of Spring flowers, you better believe I grabbed it and shoved it into our already-full library bag to check out.

I do like it.  It's a good book, with a sweet message that encourages gardening (something I like to encourage in our own house) and imagination.  The little girl is her mother's helper in the garden, and within a few pages takes off into her own imagination to tell the reader what her garden would be like.  I love many of the little girls ideas: She would have flowers that could change color just by thinking about them, and having patterned flowers, too.  The flowers would grow back just moments after she picks them! She'd have tomatoes as large as beach balls, an idea that made Lorelei's and my mouth water just thinking about it.

It's silly to complain about a book that made the New York Times Best Sellers List and stayed there for a few months.  But, of course, that's what I'm going to do.  Why can't the little girl just focus on the positive?  Why does Henkes have to have her say she doesn't like carrots, when there are probably way too many kids who push away their carrots and other vegetables?  Why does the little girl have to choose to have a jelly bean bush?  Don't those have a bunch of high-fructose corn syrup in them or something hideous like that?  If Jillian Michaels bought a children's book, this sure wouldn't be it! 

The pictures are so beautiful, though, that I have to forgive Henkes his shortcomings.  The garden in his book makes me impatient for our own flower garden to mature...right now there is way too much mulch where I want color to be!  We'll read this book a whole lot more, I know, and we'll appreciate its positives, because there are many.