It’s Summer and I bet your children are ready for some fun garden adventures. I wanted to share some garden books with you to read to your children. You can read one of these under a shady tree or inside while taking a break from the heat!
If you need some resources to build your own raised garden bed or if your family wants to learn how to garden with children then I got you covered with blog posts.
Check out the Nature Book Club Facebook Group!
These titles go along with this month’s theme of Gardens for the Nature Book Club. Please join us this month in garden exploration and be sure to check out all the ideas on June 20 shared by the co-hosts.
The Carrot Seed – When a little boy plants a carrot seed, everyone tells him it won’t grow. But when you are very young, there are some things that you just know, and the little boy knows that one day a carrot will come up. So he waters his seed, and pulls the weeds, and he waits…
The Curious Garden – While out exploring one day, a little boy named Liam discovers a struggling garden and decides to take care of it. As time passes, the garden spreads throughout the dark, gray city, transforming it into a lush, green world.
Flower Garden – An urban African-American girl and her father buy plants, potting soil, and a window box at the supermarket, ride the bus to their apartment, and put together a colorful gift for the child’s mother. Rhyming verse carries the brief story, while wonderful, warm, full-color illustrations present scenes from novel angles, and depict a loving family with a sense of intimacy, sincerity, and joy.
From Seed to Plant – The book includes instructions for a seed-growing project, and a page of interesting facts about plants, seeds, and flowers. A nonfiction classic, and a perfect companion for early science lessons and curious young gardeners.
The Gardener – Lydia Grace Finch brings a suitcase full of seeds to the big gray city, where she goes to stay with her Uncle Jim, a cantankerous baker. There she initiates a gradual transformation, bit by bit brightening the shop and bringing smiles to customers’ faces with the flowers she grows. But it is in a secret place that Lydia Grace works on her masterpiece — an ambitious rooftop garden — which she hopes will make even Uncle Jim smile. Sarah Stewart introduces readers to an engaging and determined young heroine, whose story is told through letters written home, while David Small’s illustrations beautifully evoke the Depression-era setting.
Green Bean! Green Bean! – A girl plants the seed of a green bean and watches it grow and mature through the seasons, even providing a nook in which to read a book. Includes supplementary information about the life cycle of plants, pertinent vocabulary, and activities
Green Green: A Community Gardening Story – Green grass is wide and fresh and clean for a family to play in, and brown dirt is perfect for digging a garden. But when gray buildings start to rise up and a whole city builds, can there be any room for green space? The neighborhood children think so, and they inspire the community to join together and build a garden for everyone to share in the middle of the city.
Growing Vegetable Soup – “Dad says we are going to grow vegetable soup.” So begins Lois Ehlert’s bright, bold picture book about vegetable gardening for the very young. The necessary tools are pictured and labeled, as are the seeds (green bean, pea, corn, zucchini squash, and carrot). Then the real gardening happens . . . planting, weeding, harvesting, washing, chopping, and cooking! In the end? “It was the best soup ever.” Ehlert’s simple, colorful cut-paper-style illustrations are child-friendly, as is the big black type. A recipe for vegetable soup tops it all off!
Jack’s Garden – Building on a rhyme that will be familiar to many children, author-illustrator Cole creates an enticing guide to creating a garden. ‘This is the garden that Jack planted…’ The final illustration presents a satisfied-looking boy surrounded by a lush, bird-filled flower garden….A concluding page of gardening suggestions serves as a springboard to books with more specific guidelines
Lola Plants a Garden – How does your garden grow? Book-loving Lola is inspired by a collection of garden poems that she reads with her mommy. She wants to plant her own garden of beautiful flowers, so she and Mommy go to the library to check out books about gardening. They choose their flowers and buy their seeds. They dig and plant. And then they wait. Lola finds it hard to wait for her flowers to grow, but she spends the time creating her own flower book. Soon she has a garden full of sunflowers and invites all of her friends for cakes and punch and a story amongst the flowers.
Molly’s Organic Farm – Whoosh . . . the wind blows open a creaky gate. Inquisitive and mischievous, a homeless little cat scampers throughand suddenly finds herself in the wondrous world of an organic farm! Affectionately named “Molly” by the farmers who discover her, she romps, naps, and hunts among the vegetables. Seen through Molly’s eyes, the reader discovers the interplay of nature that grows wholesome food. But what will happen to Molly when winter comes? Based on a true story, Molly will touch children’s hearts while introducing them to plants and the key elements of growing food organically. Standards-based science concepts and activities at the end of the book expand the message of the story.
Rainbow Stew – Splish, splash, puddle dash! Its a rainy summer day, but the vegetables in Grandpas garden are just waiting to be picked. Yellow peppers, purple cabbage, red tomatoes, green zucchini, orange carrots, and more. So many colors! So many delicious ingredients to slice, chop, peel, and dice for a great big pot of mouthwatering Rainbow Stew. Yum!
Sunflower House -Sunflower seeds sown in a circle–and watered, weeded, and watched–eventually grow into a beautiful sunflower house with lots of room inside for three friends and their imaginations.
The Tiny Seed – Eric Carle’s classic story of the life cycle of a flower is told through the adventures of a tiny seed. This mini-book includes a piece of detachable seed-embedded paper housed on the inside front cover. Readers can plant the entire
piece of paper and watch as their very own tiny
seeds grow into beautiful wildflowers.
The Vegetables We Eat – Peppers, beans, corn, and peas! Nonfiction superstar Gail Gibbons lays out the basics of veggies with colorful watercolors and straightforward text. Learn how they grow, how they get to stores, and how many kinds there are—and learn some weird trivia, too!
Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt – Up in the garden, the world is full of green—leaves and sprouts, growing vegetables, ripening fruit. But down in the dirt there is a busy world of earthworms digging, snakes hunting, skunks burrowing, and all the other animals that make a garden their home. In this exuberant and lyrical book, discover the wonders that lie hidden between stalks, under the shade of leaves…and down in the dirt.
We Are the Gardeners – Joanna and the kids chronicle the adventures of starting their own family garden. From their failed endeavors, obstacles to overcome (bunnies that eat everything!), and all the knowledge they’ve gained along the way, the Gaines family shares how they learned to grow a happy, successful garden. As it turns out, trying something new isn’t always easy, but the hardest work often yields the greatest reward. There are always new lessons to be learned in the garden!
Link up your garden nature study post during the Nature Book Club on June 20-30!
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