cover image Nelly's Garden

Nelly's Garden

Elizabeth Slote. Tambourine Books, $13.95 (32pp) ISBN 978-0-688-10013-1

Nelly is a little dragon who likes to play in her yard all year round. Devoting a two-page spread to each month of the year, Slote shows the smiling creature and her family frolicking in the snow, observing the crocuses and snowdrops of early spring, searching for Easter eggs among the daffodils and grape hyacinths in April, playing with bugs among colorful summer flowers, carving pumpkins next to the late-blooming chrysanthemums and asters, romping in a pile of leaves on a blowy November day, etc. Throughout, the emphasis is on the various flowers and plants that bloom in the designated month, which preschoolers may find uninteresting and somewhat monotonous. Considering the abundance of picture books with more substance, this sweet if somewhat insipid book is overpriced. Ages 3-up. (Mar.)