3-garden-picture-books-2024

Prunella tells the story of a young girl who develops a passion for unusual and often unloved plants, but struggles to find her place with other kids. Bestselling author Beth Ferry partners with artist Claire Keane to create a picture book with a color palette and style as unique as Prunella herself. From the cover through every page, the illustrations root Prunella in a lush but heavily shaded green space, populated by such “persnickety plants” as the obscure bladderwort, the better-known Venus flytrap or even the familiar yet hated poison ivy, with brief scientific descriptions accompanying drawings of each plant on the book’s endpapers. Readers are introduced to Prunella as an infant, child of two master gardeners and born with a purple—rather than the customary green—thumb. As she grows, her fascination with strange plants grows along with her, and though her parents “didn’t always understand Prunella’s choices . . . they completely understood her passion. And they fueled it!” 

Though Prunella has the unconditional support of her family, making friends does not come easily for her, and she takes solace in her garden. Despite its comforts, she feels left out until the day her neighbor Oliver (and soon his sister Clem) arrives, which plants “a tiny, hopeful friend-shaped seed.” Ferry makes use of nature-related words to tell this sweet story of finding your place, noting the “bouquet of botanists” and the group of young scientists who “wormed their way into Prunella’s heart.” To bring this world fully to life, Keane draws on a varied set of visual tools, sometimes breaking the page into vertical or horizontal segments like soft-edged comics panels and other times spreading out across two pages with rich and exuberant drawings. Besides the plant life, Keane is especially skilled at rendering facial expressions, giving visual voice to each character even if they never speak. Couple Ferry’s clever wordplay with Keane’s detailed illustrations, and you’ve got a book that is sure to resonate with young readers, especially those who have ever felt they didn’t fit in.

Growing up in Venezuela, Paola Santos hated having to clear the rotten fruit from beneath her family’s four mango trees, a chore that resulted in an early resistance to this delicious fruit. Her picture book debut, How to Eat a Mango, reclaims this experience with joy through the eyes (and ears, nose and mouth) of young Carmencita as she works with and learns from her Abuelita. Like the author, Carmencita doesn’t like the work of picking mangoes and thinks she also dislikes the fruit—until Abuelita explains, “There’s more to a mango, mi amor,” and teaches her the five steps of enjoying one. Abuelita takes Carmencita on a journey through all her senses and encourages a sense of gratitude towards the abundant goodness of the world around her.

That journey is told in lyrical language, beginning with, “Uno, we listen,” as the mango trees “whistle stories of sunrays and rain and those under its shade.” Juliana Perdamo’s accompanying illustrations are full of life and warmth and color, and combine with the writing to create a lush story that encourages young readers to tune in—with all their senses—to the many gifts nature has to offer. Simultaneously lively and meditative, How to Eat a Mango would make an excellent choice to teach kids about mindfulness. It is no quiet book, however; sensory experiences explode on each page, and young readers will appreciate the way Carmencita connects the mango to her own life: “Mangoes grow up! When I teach Carlitos to get dressed, I feel like a big kid.” Through it all, Santos weaves in the youthful wonder that she resisted as a child, explaining in an author’s note that, now that she lives in Canada, mangoes “embody my desire to go back in time and tell my younger self to pay attention.” With its simultaneous publication in Spanish, this gentle book will remind all its readers, young and old, of the joys of thoughtful attention.