The Gardener Read Aloud by Sarah Stewart
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Last fourth dimension around I reviewed a book called for you lot past my beautiful little girl Mila.
Today, I asked Mila'southward twin blood brother Ivan to select another special treat for you.
This time Ivan also had full freedom to choose a book for you lot with no instructions from me or anyone else.
What would he cull?
From our entire home library of more than than a thousand children's books.
I must admit I was wondering which book would my son bring me.
My lovely son surprised me.
He chose a fantastically moving picture book - The Gardener.
We have non read information technology in a long time, more than half a year - I think.
Not many picture books can be defined every bit true classics, yet this is 1 of the few that belong to the select grouping.
The Gardener is non simply recognized as fab by Ivan, just it is as well a 1997 New York Times Volume Review Notable Children's Book of the Year, as well equally 1998 Caldecott Honor Volume.
Had you asked me only five years agone, I would probably have said that a girl would have chosen The Gardener and that a boy would have chosen The Man Who Lost His Head (Mila's choice last fourth dimension around).
But this fault, just serves to illustrate a good point.
Reading aloud has taught me how little do we truly know nearly the inner life of our children.
I hateful well-nigh their real selves.
Books make that inner life even more circuitous. Books have a crucial influence.
It is a folio by page process.
Children grow into unlike people after coming into contact with new ideas, images, concepts.
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| Uncle Jim reads a poem written for him past Lydia Grace |
Reading aloud helps our kids to evolve together with the times - but in their instance time runs faster.
They evolve faster with books.
They evolve nonetheless they still remain kids.
But they become smarter or, even ameliorate - more aware of themselves and their surroundings.
They are no longer the same person they would have been ... without children's literature.
And that is the greatest positive power that children's books have over our children.
The power of fostering self-improvement.
But, dorsum to this fantastic book - The Gardener
Information technology is a sobering story from the era of Great Low (in the early 20th century).
As in every expert story - all children tin easily identify with the primary character in this book Lydia Grace, as authored past Sarah Stewart.
Lydia Grace Finch is a young, petite girl who lives with her parents in the poverty-stricken countryside.
With her father out of piece of work and mother earning less and less money from her dressmaking, Lydia Grace is one day sent to live with her Uncle Jim in a big gray city.
Lydia Grace is going to work for her Uncle Jim in his bakery.
Life in a large boondocks in times of poverty is drab.
Days are depressing.
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| A typical double-page spread from The Gardener |
The reality of the dire situation is beautifully shown through the astonishing full-page artwork created past David Pocket-sized.
Ever double-page of this book consists of beautiful side-to-side artwork.
The artwork is but fantastic!
(Interesting tidbit: The Gardener'due south author Sarah Stewart and illustrator David Small are married to each other and they have previously illustrated two more children's books - The Coin Tree
Fortunately, many of our own kids today accept not gone through this harsh reality of poverty and hardship.
But it is an of import lesson to be aware of.
Yet, poverty for adults and poverty for children can be 2 different experiences.
We oftentimes forget that children likewise alive in an alternative reality to ours.
This is one of the greatest powers that children have in life.Information technology is the power of overcoming harsh reality with strength of character.
Children nearly always see life as a glass half full, rarely as a glass half empty.
Green is the color of life
Lessons are not given, they are taken.
Cesare Pavese
Lydia Grace is non a child that volition succumb to the pressures of daily life.
She is well grounded in her loving family unit life.
She does not wait for things to happen, she makes them happen.
She keeps writing back habitation - and the entire picture book is presented in the form of a collection of messages penned by the little girl to her family back home in rural America.
In her letters she informs her Mama, Papa and Grandma that she will start to tend plants in window boxes in the city and she thanks her family unit for sending her seed catalogs and flower bulbs that she will employ in preparing her garden.
In each of her letters, Lydia Grace as well informs her family back home that her Uncle Jim does not smiling, which is a terse way of describing the difficult life that surrounds her in the city.
Every bit months laissez passer, Lydia Grace makes friends with the other employees of the bakery and she learns how to knead bread, while instruction others the Latin names of all flowers she knows.
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| Uncle Jim finds the secret garden on top of the building |
I of the great strengths of The Gardener
Children never meekly have the condition quo.
They have a natural instinct to follow the good and the positive, even when surrounded by gloom and even despair.
Naturally, as the economy starts to recover in May 1936, Lydia Grace informs her parents: "I saw Uncle Jim almost smile today. The store was full ... of customers".
Equally her plants in window boxes start to blossom and fifty-fifty radishes, onions and lettuce emerge to decorate the edifice windows, Lydia Grace becomes known by her new nickname - the gardener.
However, window boxes are not the only achievement that she has been working on.
Lydia Grace has been preparing a fantastic surprise for her overworked uncle who agreed to take her in during the night days of the Keen Depression.
The surprise is a marvelous rooftop garden that she prepared by herself for her Uncle Jim in club to bring a grin back to his face.
I beloved that bulletin.
Children also love letters of promise.
The Gardener is a message of strength - how we can overcome difficulty and hardship through effort and applying ourselves.
We can make lemonade out of the lemons nosotros accept been dealt.
Piece of work is non a curse in life, but also an opportunity for improvement.
But this is not all that I honey virtually The Gardener
The sweetest affair is how this amazingly illustrated picture book defines success.
A delicate measure out that should always be on our minds.
The true mensurate of success in life is not coin, simply a smile on faces that environs you.
This is not a message that yous should ignore.
The Gardener is bachelor from bookstores in the The states
Amazon
The Volume Depository (free worldwide shipping)
and in other countries:
Amazon UK
Amazon CA
Amazon DE
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Source: http://www.readalouddad.com/2015/11/the-gardener-sarah-stewart.html
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