Pearl’s Garden

Dynamic folk art and dialogue-filled text tells a story of summer garden success in this bright-eyed book from Olson. Inspired by a city gardener offering “soil, plants, and seeds,” young Pearl determines to create a vegetable garden in her family’s yard: “some lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, and onions. Plus a few other things.” Though neighbors and relations express some skepticism about the project’s feasibility, the protagonist commits to the endeavor, and “each day she watered and weeded, coaxing the plants along.” When it’s time to harvest, help is initially hard to come by until folks taste the food’s goodness. The next time Pearl asks for assistance, she gains an abundance of helping hands in the significantly scaled vegetable patch, and eventually the whole crew feast on a meal made from the abundant crops: fresh marinara and a green salad. Crisp black outlining, stylized figures portrayed with brown skin tones, and a mosaic-like garden of flattened forms combine to produce a portrait of community vibrancy that showcases how gardens can yield both food and fraternity. Ages 3–7. (Mar.)