It's Our Garden: From Seeds to Harvest in a School Garden

by George Ancona, George Ancona (Illustrator)

Overview

“This fun and inspiring season-by-season description of a school gardening project could encourage others to repeat this extraordinary experience.” — School Library Journal

Want to grow what you eat and eat what you grow? Visit this lively, flourishing school-and-community garden and be inspired to cultivate your own. Part celebration, part simple how-to, this close-up look at a vibrant garden and its enthusiastic gardeners is blooming with photos that will have readers ready to roll up their sleeves and dig in.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781536221602
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	07/06/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Lexile:	AD910L (what's this?)
File size:	21 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	5 - 8 Years

About the Author

George Ancona (1929-2021) was an award-winning author and photographer of more than one hundred books for children, many about arts and culture. He wrote and photographed Boys Dancing: From School Gym to Theater Stage; Can We Help? Kids Volunteering to Help Their Communities; and It’s Our Garden: From Seeds to Harvest in a School Garden.

George Ancona (1929-2021) was an award-winning author and photographer of more than one hundred books for children, many about arts and culture. He wrote and photographed Boys Dancing: From School Gym to Theater Stage; Can We Help? Kids Volunteering to Help Their Communities; and It’s Our Garden: From Seeds to Harvest in a School Garden.
"I grew up in Coney Island, New York. My parents came from the Yucatan in Mexico, but they met in New York, fell in love, and got married. I was born a year later. We only spoke Spanish at home. Our neighbors came from many countries. Some neighbors worked on the Coney Island amusement park rides. I got to ride the merry-go-round for free.
When I graduated high school, I went to Mexico for the first time. I got to know my grandparents, uncles,and cousins. I also met some of Mexico’s great painters. When I returned, I worked as a graphic designer with some terrific photographers. I saw that they were having more fun than I was. They traveled all over the world, took pictures, and got paid for it. I decided to quit my job and start taking photographs for picture stories and documentary films. I went to North Africa, Mexico, Peru, Brazil, Iceland, Spain, Italy, Morocco, Pakistan, Japan, and all over the United States.
One day a friend whose wife wrote children’s books asked if I would like to take pictures for a book she was writing. I agreed, and we published a book called Faces. It was fun. I began to collaborate with other authors to make children’s books. One day my editor suggested I write a book. “Who me? I don’t know how to write.” But I did write my first book and took the pictures. It was called Monsters on Wheels. Of the 115 books I’ve done, about half are collaborations. When I finish a book I always feel that the cover is like a door to the world and the people in it."

Editorial Reviews

In photographs and clear prose, Ancona follows the children at the Acequia Madre Elementary School in Santa Fe as they cultivate a school garden. Photographs show the students composting, planting, raising butterflies, and engaged in other activities. In addition to being a source of food, the garden becomes an outdoor classroom; on weekends and during the summer, members of the community gather in the garden to listen to music and make vegetable pizzas in the horno (an abode oven). As autumn approaches, the students harvest cabbage (“Their long, strong roots test the strength and stamina of some of the bigger kids”), lemon cucumbers, and strawberry corn, which they use to make popcorn. The documentary-style narrative and uplifting photos put the joy of kinship, outdoor work, and growing food within reach of readers. Ages 5–8. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

The documentary-style narrative and uplifting photos put the joy of kinship, outdoor work, and growing food within reach of readers.
—Publishers Weekly

This fun and inspiring season-by-season description of a school gardening project could encourage others to repeat this extraordinary experience.
—School Library Journal

The clearly written text works seamlessly with the two kinds of color illustrations: Ancona’s many effective photos record the garden experience over the course of the growing season, while the children’s drawings (in crayon or marker) offer a fresh counterpoint to his engaging photos. An inviting introduction to school gardens.
—Booklist

With the growing interest in school gardens, this is a timely book. Listed resources, both books and websites, give more information. The full-color photographs are well-done, and illustrations drawn by students add further interest and visual appeal.
—Library Media Connection

Like these children and adults working in harmony with the earth’s resources, Ancona’s words and visuals exist in a beautiful balance.
—The Horn Book

From the Publisher

Gr 1–3—An entire multicultural community gets involved in a year-long school garden project and enjoys the fresh food their children grow from seed to harvest. From the nitty gritty of taking turns to take the garbage out to the compost and stir it around with latex-gloved hands to the sublime pleasure of enjoying the popcorn they grew, all of their activities are described and illustrated. The writing brings the project to life by including sounds ("the school bell sounds and the classrooms explode with the noise of books closing, chairs sliding on the floor and kids chattering"); touch (you can almost feel the little worms, ladybugs, pill bugs and gooey mud pictured on the students' hands); taste (sampling the radishes and throwing them on the compost heap); and smell (the sizzling pizza baking in the outdoor adobe oven the community made). Crisp, clear, full-color photographs are interspaced with the children's crayon drawings. This fun and inspiring season-by-season description of a school gardening project could encourage others to repeat this extraordinary experience.—Frances E. Millhouser, formerly at Chantilly Regional Library, Fairfax County, VA

School Library Journal

Ancona takes readers on a yearlong tour of one Santa Fe, N.M., school garden. The garden at Acequia Madre Elementary School will no doubt give rise to the little green monster in the hearts of more than a few educators. Complete with an outdoor classroom, greenhouse, composting area, and some local college students to pitch in and help, it is an enviable addition to the campus. Students are involved in all aspects of the garden: They help plan it, plant the seeds, transplant seedlings, mulch and water and compost the beds, raise butterflies to pollinate the garden, make adobe bricks to line garden beds, coat the horno (a traditional oven) in new adobe, harvest the fruits and vegetables, and prepare the garden for winter. In the summertime, the community comes together for gatherings in the garden, many of which involve eating the produce. Color photographs give educators something to drool over, while charming artwork done by the kids dots the pages. While there are some educational tidbits scattered in the text—for example, how plants are pollinated—this is less a gardening book for children than a book for those educators who want to go from the dreaming stage to the planning and doing stages…and who want to involve their students in the process. It's sure to bring out the green thumb of many an educator, and it just may provoke some kids to get out in their own yards and make a garden. (bibliography, websites) (Informational picture book. 5-8, adult)

Kirkus Reviews