Planting the Wild Garden

An unexpected and delightful calm eased over me after reading Planting the Wild Garden, so much so that I read it a few times for the addictive hit. (I had just seen the documentary If a Tree Falls, about the Earth Liberation Front, and I needed an antidote…) Everything about the book seemed to soothe me. The watercolors in the illustrations by Wendy Anderson Halperin are light and understated  in the most pleasant variations of greens and blues and yellows. The pencil drawings are subtly intricate. Ah…this is easier than going outside!

The story centers on the theme of interconnectedness, explaining to children–and weary adults–that the seeding of Nature is not solely the handiwork of humankind. The actions of a variety of flora and fauna make the natural environment look like it does. Some seeding is random, some accidental, much of it fails. But a great oak tree is a testament to this process that appears–outwardly anyway–to be unselective.
As I lay back to be instructed about how the earth works, I was reminded of a scene from one of my favorite books for young teens, The Cay, in which young Phillip explains to Timothy how species migrated around the earth.

Planting the Wild Garden is written by Kathryn O. Galbraith. Early readers will find it a fun challenge, and younger children will want to identify the many species of plants and animals as it is read to them. It is thirty-two pages long, and published by Peachtree Publishers. A bibliography of books on seeds is included at the end.