World Book Day 1 March 2012: The Global Garden by Kate Petty and Jennie Maizels

Global Garden by Kate Petty and Jennie Maizels

My choice for world book day is a non-fiction book. A book that nevertheless tells a story about how plants are part of our everyday lives. It is a very visual book with bold colours and design. Most of the pages are interactive with pops ups, tabs to lift up and flaps to open. It is suitable for ages 4 to 7 and onwards.


It covers very simply what plants need to grow, how they grow and how they reproduce. Children can focus on their favourite fruits and vegetables. The table is set for breakfast and you can find out about the source of all those yummy foods.

The book will help your children gain a basic understanding of botany and it may even inspire them to get growing. It is a must for both boys and girls. They will not be disappointed and will want dip into it over the years. It is a great mix of the visual, fun and a teeny bit educational. Hopefully it will whet their appetite to read more about plants and growing.

A bunch of flowers

The book is published by the Eden Project who also publish a book with a similar theme ‘The World Came to My Place Today’.

To celebrate World Book Day everyone at my son's school is dressing up as a character from a book.  It would make this blogpost complete if I could now say that my son choose to be a character from one of our gardening story books.  However this is real life and he choose a shark.  Hope you like the costume.
 

World Book Day: A Book to Inspire your Children to Garden

If I could only take one children's gardening book on to that desert island it would have to be 'Eddie's Garden and How to Make Things Grow' by Sarah Garland. It is a simple, homely and feel good story about a little boy growing vegetables and flowers with his family. It has held the attention of my 6 year old for the last 3 years and there is still more staying power in it.

Give your child their own plot of earth, let them dig and plant their own seeds and any child will identify with Eddie. What helps Eddie's garden to grow? Your little ones may well be able to answer that question and you certainly will because you will be reading it to them lots of time.

The story involves 3 generations of the same family. A nice touch as grandparents often help with nurturing those little green fingers. The illustrations include colourful characters from the garden. The ubiquitous robin always around when digging is on the go, wriggly worms and those evil snails. Eddie himself is inspired by the story of Jack and the Bean Stalk.

There is a useful list of Eddie's plants of 12 vegetables and edible flowers, with brief growing instructions. It is a great starter gardening book.

If you only read your children one book about gardening let it be this one. This is the time of year to get growing and sowing and this is the ideal book to read with your kids.

Children's Gardening: Ready, Steady, Grow

It is World Book Day today so I thought I would review my most recent gardening book - The Royal Horticultural Society's Ready, Steady, Grow - Quick and Easy Gardening Projects. There were no reviews on Amazon when I ordered it so I was not quite sure what to expect. It is 80 pages in typical Dorling Kindersley style - easy to read, plenty of photos and clear layout. It doesn't state an age range. I would suggest for children using the book on their own from about age 7.

I was slightly disappointed when I first glanced through it, but it has appropriately, grown on me. It covers a number of plant-related projects and the growing of flowers, veggies, herbs and fruit. I liked the way it clearly states how long each of the activities will take to come to fruition, so avoiding raised expectations.

There are some great ideas in the book. Sunflower people grown in tin cans with a painted body on and a face etched out in the sunflower would put a smile on any child's face. There are two projects on sprouting seeds, an area often overlooked by children's gardening books. Yet these seeds are simple, easy and fast to grow; a great beginners activity or one for the little ones. I also loved the idea of growing watercress, especially from cuttings taken from a bag of supermarket watercress. Most gardeners grow from cuttings and it is a great skill for children to learn. I shall certainly be trying this one out with my son.

I wasn't quite so keen on the enchanted path project detailing how to make cement stepping stones in a leaf shape. It also would have been useful to see the book cover relevant web links and where to source some of the plants and materials mentioned. There are other books on the market covering this topic, but if you don't have one on your bookshelf and what to encourage your budding gardeners then this is the right time of year to buy this book and get growing.