In a Garden

“In a garden/ full of green/ many moments/ go unseen.” McCanna’s adroit rhyming celebration of a year in a garden conjures invisible dramas, from a single seed nestled beside a millipede sprouting into “newborn flowers” to the many creatures who live in the plants: “Earwigs scuttle./ Beetles scurry./ Roly-polies/ scoot and worry.” (Insect-loving readers will appreciate McCanna’s focus on arthropods alongside the flowers.) Sicuro’s painterly illustrations chronicle the seasons’ shift from the barely green branches of spring to the swirls of winter snow, and offer another subtle indication of…

Life buzzes in a community garden. Surrounded by apartment buildings, this city garden gets plenty of human attention, but the book's stars are the plants and insects. The opening spread shows a black child in a striped shirt sitting in a top-story window; the nearby trees and garden below reveal the beginnings of greenery that signal springtime. From that high-up view, the garden looks quiet—but it's not. "Sleepy slugs / and garden snails / leave behind their silver trails. / Frantic teams of busy ants / scramble up the stems of plants"; and "In the earth / a single seed / sits beside a…

Rhyming text walks viewers through a year in the life of a community garden in this celebration of the flora and fauna that inhabit it. Spring sees the arrival of birds and the digging of worms, and “Then at last/ a tiny shoot/ ever slowly/ forms a root.// First a seedling/ then a sprout/ pushing/ bursting/ up and out.” Tulips bloom in a riot of color as various insects busy themselves (“Earwigs scuttle./ Beetles scurry./ Roly-polies/ scoot and worry”) in and around the soil. Frogs and ladybugs take shelter during a rainfall, and a summer night brings out the fireflies, much to the delight of…

“McCanna's superb scansion never misses...Like its subject: full of bustling life yet peaceful.”