Children's Garden Books
Here is a collection of books about gardening for fun and learning. Children, teachers, moms and dads will enjoy the books that make gardening an adventure.
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A Child's Garden: Introducing Your Child to the Joys of the Garden
Book Description: A CHILD'S GARDEN is the perfect companion for mothers who want to share the joys of their gardens with their sons or daughters. Through joint explorations of nature, mothers can stimulate their children's senses and help them explore the sights, sounds, textures, and scents of their own backyard. The memory of these adventures can be preserved in the 11 chapters of this interactive garden journal.
Dig, Plant, Grow : A Kid's Guide to Gardening
Book Description: During the past ten years, children's gardens have become popular additions to botanical gardens across the U.S. Dig, Plant, Grow - A Kid's Guide to Gardening written by the ever popular Felder Rushing.
The book also includes gardening projects such as bean teepee, stepping stones and creatingplant labels. Various types of gardens, such as a Japanese garden, will be explored.Dig, Plant, Grow alsodiscusses the different aspects of nature (such as insects, flower parts, types of leaves) and how they all affect the garden. Colorful symbols explain which plants attract butterflies and other visitors.
"Grown-Up Stuff" that addresses a curriculum and how gardening impacts different subjects in schools.
Eddie's Garden and How to Make Things Grow
Ages: PreSchool-Grade 2
Reading level: Ages 4-8
Book Description: What makes Eddie's garden grow? Earth, rain, sun, and all sorts of creatures, of course! Eddie works hard - digging, pulling weeds, and watering his plants - and soon his garden is magnificent, from his string bean house to his tall sunflowers. How his garden develops and grows is clearly and delightfully told in this gentle story with colorful illustrations by Sarah Garland. Children will be inspired by the idea that they can grow plants themselves that the whole family will eat and enjoy. The book includes full information on growing a garden like Eddie's in a home garden or containers.
Flower Garden
Ages: Kindergarten-Grade 1
Reading level: Ages 4-8
Book Description: Follow the progress of a little girl and her father as they purchase "a garden," and board the bus to carry it home. The pansies, tulips, daffodils, geraniums, and daisies are lovingly planted in a window box, and the candles on the cake are lighted--just as Mom walks in the door to find her daughter, her husband, and her birthday surprise.
From Seed to Plant
Ages: Kindergarten-Grade 2
Reading level: Ages 4-8
School Library Journal: A simple introduction to how plants reproduce, discussing pollination, seed dispersal, and growth from seed to plant. The section on pollination, covered in detail in the illustrations, is very clear. A simple project--how to grow a bean plant--is included. A final page gives odd and unusual facts. Unfortunately, the text is pedestrian and occasionally awkward. The boldly colored illustrations are casual, somewhat careless, and some plants are hard to recognize. Other books cover the same subject with more excitement in language and zest in visual design. Bean and Plant (Silver Burdett, 1986) by Back, Reason for a Flower (Putnam, 1983) by Heller, or Lauber's Seeds: Pop, Stick, Glide (Crown, 1981) are better titles. --Sharon Levin, University of Vermont, Burlington Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Garden Crafts for Kids: 50 Great Reasons to Get Your Hands Dirty
Book Description: A fascinating book with over 50 easy, fun projects for kids of nearly all ages, including: growing potatoes in tires, building a gardening tool station, making a purple martin house from a gourd, and discovering the joys of composting. Clear, simple explanations of plant physiology, and discussion of other garden-relevant wildlife such as birds and bugs, make this a great teaching resource as well as a how-to book.
Gardening with Children
Book Decription Richardson creates an unusual approach to gardening, a guide to including children of all ages in the garden. Divided into two main sections, "Including Children in the Gardening Activity" and "Making Gardening Fun for Children," the author provides all the basics of gardening--planning, planting, composting, soil preparation--but shows how to include children in the process, how to interpret and teach, and how to engage them fully and joyfully in the entire process from planting to gathering flowers and eating the vegetables they have helped to grow.
Some of the activities outlined are creating a "pizza garden," building a heritage garden, making a scarecrow, carving personalized pumpkins, and saving seeds. To bring the pleasures and delights and knowledge of the garden and gardening to children will give them an experience that will last a lifetime. --Mark A. Hetts
Greening School Grounds
Book Description: The movement to naturalize schoolyards is spreading swiftly throughout North America. This compendium of articles from Green Teacher brings together the best strategies for transforming barren expanses of school grounds into natural spaces for learning and playing. From vegetable and butterfly gardens to an amphibian oasis and avian attractors, this comprehensive resource offers a trove of curriculum tie-ins, activities, and plans for educators, parents, and students. Includes extensive resources.
Green Thumbs: A Kid's Activity Guide to Indoor and Outdoor Gardening
Reading level: Ages 4-8
Grit Magazine: Grit Magazine These gardening projects are so simple, quick and fun, anyone can turn their brown thumb in to a green thumb.
Growing Vegetable Soup
Ages: PreSchool-Grade 1
Reading level: Ages 4-8
From School Library Journal: This is the boldest, brassiest garden book to hit the market, and what a delight. Intensely colored graphics capture the complete growing process from seed to cooking pot, with the focus on the plants. The unseen narrator describes the process of growing vegetable soup, from preparing the tools and digging holes for the seeds to weeding plants; picking vegetables; washing, chopping, and cooking themand finally enjoying the homemade soup while planning to grow more next year. It's a fresh presentation of the gardening cycle with a joyful conclusion, and the added attraction of an easy and tasty recipe for vegetable soup on the flyleaf. A book to help nourish healthy readers. Barbara Peklo Serling, Oneida City Schools, N.Y. Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Hollyhock Days : Garden Adventures for the Young at Heart
Book Description Hollyhock Days introduces kids and grown-ups alike to the joys of nature through interesting facts, memories, heartwarming stories, garden plans and projects. Adorned with delightful watercolor illustrations, this light-hearted volume is the ideal companion to her first book Sunflower Houses and her newset book Roots, Shoots, Buckets, & Boots: Gardening Together with Children.
Gardening is fun, and it can also be funny-all you need is good soil, water, sunshine, seeds, and a sense of humor. "Hollyhock Days" will introduce kids and grown-ups alike to the joys of nature through interesting facts, memories, heartwarming stories, garden plans and porjects.
Being a gardener doesn't require fancy tools and a big yard, says the book's author, Sharon Lovejoy, whose favorite gardening tool is a big kitchen spoon borrowed from her mother. The simple hands-on projects in "Hollyhock Days" foster a renewed and childlike sense of the wonders to be found in everyone's backyard.
You'll learn how to have fun with carrots, create a hollyhock tent, tickle sunflowers, make a caterpillar cave, wash with a squash, and much, much more. Adorned with delightful illustrations by Sharon, this light hearted volume is the ideal companion to her other books.
I Plant a Garden with My Mom
About the Author: Paula was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and her parents gave her a love for writing. My father was a humorous man and had an art for teaching. My mother had an art for baking cookies. They both put smiles on our young faces. As a writer of children’s books, Paula shares her thoughts, and offers children everywhere the same warmth and comfort she received as a child, and to give back the love of writing to others. Susan Kathleen Gumm the illustrator of this book, hails from Kirkland, Washington in the Pacific Northwest.
Jack's Garden
Ages: 3-9 Reading level: Baby-Preschool
Book Description: "Building on a rhyme that will be familiar to many children, author-illustrator Cole creates an enticing guide to creating a garden. 'This is the garden that Jack planted...' The final illustration presents a satisfied-looking boy surrounded by a lush, bird-filled flower garden....A concluding page of gardening suggestions serves as a springboard to books with more specific guidelines."--Horn Books
"Building on a rhyme that will be familiar to many children, author-illustrator Cole creates an enticing guide to creating a garden. 'This is the garden that Jack planted...' The final illustration presents a satisfied-looking boy surrounded by a lush, bird-filled flower garden....A concluding page of gardening suggestions serves as a springboard to books with more specific guidelines."
Planting a Rainbow
Ages: PreSchool-Grade 1
Reading level: Ages 4-8
Book Description: This educational and enjoyable book helps children understand how to plant bulbs, seeds, and seedlings, and nurture their growth. “The stylized representations of flower species are labeled throughout, allowing young children to get an idea of how each flower type contributes to the rainbow effect."--Booklist.
Roots, Shoots, Buckets & Boots : Gardening Together with Children
Book Description: Plant a pumpkinseed with a child, and cultivate wonder. This simple act of reconnecting with children with nature is Sharon Lovejoy's purpose and joy and gift. Author of Sunflower Houses: Garden Discoveries for Children of All Ages and Hollyhock Days: Garden Adventures for the Young at Heart, Sharon Lovejoy is a nationally known garden writer whose books, television specials, and projects at her learning landscape in California have introduced thousands of children to the pleasures of gardening.
In her newest book, Roots, Shoots, Buckets & Boots, she presents 12 spirited, easy-to-implement ideas for theme gardens that parents and kids can grow together. Illustrated throughout by the author's own lyrical watercolors, each garden includes a plan, the planting recipe -- seeds, seedlings, and growing instructions spelled out step-by-step -- and activities. There's the Pizza Patch , a giant-size wheel garden planted in "slices" of tomatoes, zucchini, oregano, and basil. A Flowery Maze to get lost in. A Moon Garden of night-blooming flowers, including a moonflower tent. And Mother Nature's Medicine Chest.
Discovery Walks teach kids how the gardens work, and a chapter on gardening basics includes a child-friendly 10-Minute Plan for planting and maintenance, plus a list of the top 20 plants guaranteed to make gardeners out of kids.
Sunflower House
Ages 4-7
Book Description: A charming tale about inventive children who plant some summer fun.
Sunflower Houses : Inspiration from the Garden - A Book for Children and Their Grown-Ups
Reading level: Ages 9-12
Book Description: A magical book of adventures and appreciations written and illustrated by the author of Roots, Shoots, Buckets & Boots this award-winning title was published by a small press in Colorado in 1991. The reviews say it all: A fetching primer on gardening for children. . . . Irresistible (The Smithsonian). What child, or indeed adult, would not be delighted? Lovejoy's recollections are wonderful, as are the illustrations (Victoria).
Celebrating the lore of the garden and the joy of interacting with nature, Sunflower Houses is a unique garden lover's miscellany, a collection of memories, poems, activities, garden plans, crafts, botanical riddles, stories, games, and planting projects.
There are inspirations for a Floral Clock Garden, A Child's Own Rainbow, Faerie Tea Parties, and, of course, the Sunflower House. Plus, from garden lovers, stories of favorite flowers. Throughout are the artist's warm and appealing watercolors of a life in gardening remembered.
"A fetching primer on gardening for children, chockablock with botanical lore...Green-thumbed adults will also find this an irresistible excursion into old-fashioned garden history." (The Smithsonian)
"[Sunflower Houses] lit up my life and, indeed, may go on doing so for years to come. Enchanting!" (American Library Book Review)
Celebrate the lore of the garden and the joys of interacting with nature. Filled with cozy recollections and garden poems, a plant abecedarium and the charm of pansies, how to grow a zucchini "fish" in a bottle and why every garden needs a swing, this unique miscellany insures that the memorable outdoor experiences of childhood will be passed on from one generation to the next. Illustrating the book throughout are the author's warm and appealing watercolors of a life in gardening remembered.
Whose Garden Is It?
Ages: Preschool-Grade 1
Book Description: The gardener says the garden belongs to him. But the woodchuck insists that it's his. And so do the rabbit, the butterfly, the squash bug, and the bumblebee. Even the tiny seeds and whistling weeds think the garden just couldn't grow without them. As they stroll through the exquisite plants and flowers, Mrs. McGee and her child listen and wonder: Whose garden is it?
Children's book luminaries Mary Ann Hoberman and Jane Dyer reveal the secrets of a glorious garden in this beautiful and poetic rhyming read-aloud.
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