Book # 4 - The Curious Garden

 

Title: The Curious Garden

Author: Peter Brown

Illustrator: Peter Brown

Publisher: The Little, Brown Books

Date of Publication:2009

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Readability Lexile: Not Available

"There was once a city without gardens or trees or greenery of any kind."

Summary:

Liam, a very curious young boy finds a forgotten garden while wandering outside one day. Liam is from a city that is very dreary and dirty and where most people spend all of their time indoors. Liam isn't a gardener but he knows that he can help so he begins to tend to the garden. With some TLC, the garden starts growing and keeps growing and growing and growing! Liam works through Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring. Even though Liam cannot visit the garden in the winter time he spends his time planning for spring. When spring comes the garden starts popping up everywhere and so do new gardeners. Soon everyone is starts taking care of the garden. By the end the city is a beautiful green place and it all started with one little boy's curiousness. 

I used this book with 4th graders and they loved it but I think you could use it as a read aloud for kindergarten students through 3rd grade. This book is a great introduction to environmental themed topics and to talk about how everyone can make the world a more beautiful place. 

Evaluation of Text:

This is a great story and has an even greater theme. I think this story is very believable because people all over the world start gardening and it usually does make their city, town, back yard, or park more beautiful. This story is fun because the garden kind of has a mind of its own as it covers the entire city. 

The main character in this story is a smart, curious, outdoorsy kind of boy who must figure out a way to take care of the garden when no one else will. He must do a lot of work and planning to achieve this goal and in the end, he does it. I think he set out to just take care of this small care but really he was taking care of his entire city. I think Liam and the other people from the city learn that it only takes a sparking to light a fire... meaning it only takes one person to start something amazing and beautiful! I think a character like Liam was an excellent choice for this story because he's just this little read-headed boy who likes to be outside but turns into a master gardener by then end of the story. The language of the character seems very natural and fits with Liam's character.

The setting of this story was great! The author really sets the story at the beginning, with the ugly, dirty, and sad city and at the end of the story, with the beautiful, green, and cheerful city. The way the author uses his illustrations and text to show the before and after of Liam's gardening adventure really adds a lot to the story.

The theme of this story is one that every child should experience through reading; that everyone, even a child, can make a difference and make the world a more beautiful place. On the back of the book there is a picture of Liam and it says, " One Boy's quest for a greener world... one garden at a time." This sums up the story's theme really well. Liam starts with a small garden and it eventually takes over the whole city because of his love and compassion for it. This is another theme of the story; that with a little love and compassion, anything is possible. I think Liam didn't know that his garden was going to spread through the whole city but since he cared so much more it, it did and to just throughout the city but the other people who lived there. Liam's garden got many people to get involved in making the city a better place.

Though the main character in this story is white, the author shows people of all races in this book coming together to take care of the giant city garden. The author doesn't use any offensive, degrading, or stereotypical vocabulary or illustrations.

Literary Elements

1. Personification: The author writes about the garden as it was a person in this story. When we first start reading The Curious Garden we probably think that is will be about a strange garden but as we read we find out that the garden really curious in the sense that is wants to explore. The garden travels all over the city and explores every inch! The author also says at one point that the plants awoke from their winter sleep. This relates the plants to  people because plants don't actually sleep in the winter.
2. Word Choice: The author uses some fantastic words in this book in place of normal, everyday words. For example, the author says drizzly instead of rainy, dreary instead of sad, and popped up instead of grew. This book would be an excellent choice for some rich vocabulary instruction. 
3. Descriptive Words: To go along with the author's word choice, he also uses many adverbs and adjectives in this story to describe the things Liam does to care for the garden, and to describe Liam, the garden, and the city before and after Liam went to work. 

The illustrations definitely help to tell this story. On many pages the text is kind of just ends and the author expects the reading to look at the illustrations to finish the thought. For example, on one page the author writes, "The flowers nearly drowned and he had a few pruning problems, but the plants patiently waited while Liam found better ways of gardening." The below that text it shows Liam singing to his plants. The reader can link the new way of gardening to Liam singing to his plants. the illustrations also do a great job at showing the setting. Before Liam gardened the city was dirty and sad and after is was beautiful and green. The author shows a before and after picture of the same city picture. The reader can really see how the city has changed for the better throughout the story. 


There are so many things that a teacher could focus on for this story. I think I would do a lesson on how illustrations can help to tell the story. We should start by reading the story out loud together and then highlight the different parts that the illustrations finish the though of the text. Then I would come up with some sentences that would need an illustration to finish the idea . I would read those sentences and have the students draw their own picture to go with the text. Eventually after practice I would have students create their own stories and use many illustrations to accompany it.