My Busy Green Garden Format: Paperback

CCBC Choice Book 2018 : The Annual Best of the Year List of the Cooperative Children's Book Center

This is my busy green garden.

There’s a surprise
In clever disguise,
That hangs in my busy green garden.

This is a ladybug dawdling so,
Near the surprise, in clever disguise,
That hangs in my busy green garden.

This is a honeybee buzzing below
The red spotted ladybug dawdling so,
Near the surprise, in clever disguise,
That hangs in my busy green garden.

So begins this lyrical tribute to the bugs, bees, and birds that make the garden such a busy place. With each turned page, more visitors appear, and all the while the “surprise”―a chrysalis―changes unnoticed until, on the last page, a butterfly emerges and flies away across the garden’s well-tended borders. Back-of-book notes about the natural histories of the garden’s denizens complete this lovely and lively portrait of backyard nature, which is also a gentle meditation on the rewards of paying attention. A chipmunk hides on every page to divert and engage young readers.

Fountas & Pinnell Level O

Color throughout

TERRY PIERCE (Ridgecrest, CA) was a Montessori teacher for 22 years before writing children’s books. Her 18 books include Tae Kwon Do! (Bank Street College Best Children’s Books of 2007); Blackberry Banquet; Mother Goose Rhymes (a 2007 AEP Distinguished Achievement Award Winner) and My Busy Green Garden. She is an instructor in the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program.

CAROL SCHWARTZ has illustrated more than 50 picture books, including My Busy Green Garden, which Kirkus called “a lovely literary and artistic rendering.” Her other books include Sea Squares (an Outstanding Science Trade Book and Children’s Choice award winner), The Maiden of Northland (an Aesop Accolade List book), and Thinking about Ants (an Outstanding Science Trade Book). Carol taught illustration at Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design and has shared her passion for illustrating at the hundreds of elementary schools, libraries, conferences, and colleges she has visited.