Grow: A Novel in Verse

by Juanita Havill, Stanislawa Kodman (Illustrator)

Overview

This verse novel about the creation of a community garden reveals the extraordinary magic that occurs when ordinary people work together.

Everything about Berneetha is big—especially her dreams. And when Berneetha decides to create a garden on a vacant lot, twelve-year-old Kate Sibley just has to help make that dream a reality. At first the neighbors think Kate and Berneetha are crazy, but slowly a community begins to grow, much like the plants do.

But just as the garden and Kate are both beginning to bloom, a sign goes up: a parking garage will be built on the lot. Can Kate and Berneetha and their friends keep the garden and the dream alive?

Award-winning author Juanita Havill's story of a community garden in an urban neighborhood is told through the eyes of an impressionable girl in a series of richly detailed prose poems. The result is an affecting, lasting portrait of community life and the power of shared commitment and hope.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781561455751
Publisher:	Holiday House
Publication date:	04/05/2011
Pages:	160
Sales rank:	580,578
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 7.40(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Juanita Havill was born in Indiana and grew up in Illinois. She is the author of more than thirty books for children, including Jamaica's Find, which received the Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Award. She lives and gardens in Arizona.

Stanislawa Kodman is known best by her cats, who say she spends way too much time drawing, playing with letterforms, and watching movies, instead of entertaining them during their few waking minutes. The pressures of a muse are great, but such is the life of a cat. She lives in Georgia.

Editorial Reviews

"This novel in verse shows how an inner-city community garden brings neighbors together.. . . the target audience will hear the freshness in Kate's voice as she delivers a message of hope and resilience."—Publishers Weekly

"Penciled illustrations add touches of whimsy and charm to the story. . . a nice read."—Kirkus Reviews

"Well-placed line drawings and an abundance of white space showcase Havill's fluid verse."—School Library Journal

"There's more than just a message here; there's a real story. . . With quiet scribbly drawings of the tendrils of snap beans, wild dancing feet, and lacy leaves, the pages depict the power of working as a community."—Booklist

From the Publisher

Reminiscent of Paul Fleischman's Seedfolks, this novel in verse shows how an inner-city community garden brings neighbors together. A series of poems written from the perspective of a 12-year-old girl, Kate, traces the evolution of a littered vacant lot into the pride of the neighborhood. The transformation requires hard work, mostly from Berneetha, a retired teacher and dedicated gardener ("She's big./ She's round./ There's a lot of her" and she shows up to reclaim the plot "looking like the Fourth of July/ and it barely being May"). Others, touched by Barneetha's efforts, help, too, among them Harlan (at first Kate sees him as a "graffiti gangsta"), whose abusive father almost runs him down in his low-rider truck (and hits Berneetha's cat instead); Dr. Arockiasamy from the neighborhood clinic (" 'Call me Chitra,' she says,/ surprising me, but why?/ Did I think her first name was 'doctor'?"), and a firefighter who comes up with a solution when the land is designated to become a parking garage. While the trajectory of Havill's (Jamaica's Find) plot is familiar, the target audience will hear the freshness in Kate's voice as she delivers a message of hope and resilience. Final art not seen by PW. Ages 8-12. (Apr.)

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Publishers Weekly

Gr 4-6- Crazy Berneetha believes that she can turn a garbage-strewn vacant lot into a garden and she exudes so much excitement that 12-year-old Kate joins her in her quest. Although the neighbors look askance at the project in the beginning, slowly they are drawn in-graffiti painter Harlan works the tiller, Dr. Arockiasamy from the clinic tends the tomatoes, grumpy Mr. Wasserman provides some manure, and the young Simpson brothers water the plants. As the garden grows, so do the friendships, but trouble lies ahead: the plot has been rezoned and will be turned into a parking garage. Although the neighbors join together, they are unsuccessful in their attempt to stop progress. Just when it looks like all is lost, firefighter Tony offers the empty lot next to the station and the whole community helps to transplant the flowers and vegetables. This short novel in verse is beautifully written with pleasing alliteration and flowing lines. Havill creates real characters with depth even though the text is minimal. Emotions ring true: readers feel Kate's anguish over the death of a cat as well as her exuberance when she realizes there's a solution to an overwhelming problem. The verse is filled with meaningful phrases ("...weeds can be anything, even beautiful flowers...") and is a joy to read. Whimsical line drawings add to the heartwarming story.-Anne Knickerbocker, formerly at Cedar Brook Elementary School, Houston, TX

School Library Journal

With school out and time on her hands, Berneetha, a generous and colorful special-needs educator whose job was just cut, decides to take an unused plot of land and turn it into a community garden. Her enormous and enormously inviting spirit draws people together, including narrator Kate, a 12-year-old who appears to enjoy chocolate cake more than her mother likes, and Harlan, a stray-cat kind of boy. Eventually, the gardeners are told to get off the land, which is slated to be developed into an office tower. Mercifully, the author avoids a heavy, protracted courtroom battle, and the agreeable characters manage to relocate the garden, transplanting the flowers and vegetables-even Berneetha's deceased cat, buried in the garden by Kate and Harlan, is disinterred and reburied. Kodman's pencil illustrations add touches of whimsy and charm to the story, and designate it a work for a young audience. Much of the language is prosaic and structurally simple, punctuated by an occasional burst of poetic language. However, it's a nice read, and it would partner well with Paul Fleischman's much more challenging Seedfolks (1997). (Fiction/poetry. 8-12)

Kirkus Reviews