Reviewed by annieb123 on
Planting a Garden in Room 6: From Seeds to Salad is a wonderfully engaging and graphically appealing picture book about a kindergarten class who planted a garden, tended it, and harvested food written by Caroline Arnold. Due out 15th March 2022 from Charlesbridge, it's 40 pages and will be available in hardcover and ebook formats.
This is such a wholesome and fun book. It's fully illustrated with photos in color of the children and their teacher, Mrs. Best. They are shown preparing the soil for planting, starting seeds, and improving the soil in their planting boxes with compost and earthworms. The tasks associated with planning, planting, and caring for the young plants are all shown in clear photos with simple accompanying easy to read text. Extra tips and important info are written in highlighted text boxes.
Subtle lessons about composting and reusing/recycling resources are also included in the text. The school in the book also has chickens and the author has included info about what services they perform and some of the tasks required to care for them.
The book has a natural story arc from planting seeds through harvesting (and eating) a delicious school grown salad. The photos which follow show tools used for gardening, a photo list of what parts of plants we can eat, questions and answers, a short glossary, and a resource links & bibliography lists for further reading.
This is an upbeat and fun book which is encouraging and accessible. Food security is an important and relevant theme for a majority of people in the world and knowing where our food comes from and being a part of that cycle is a vital skill-set.
Five stars. I really enjoyed this little book. This would be a superlative choice for public or school library acquisition, activity groups, community gardens/allotments, scouting type groups, youth groups, and similar.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
Reading updates
- Started reading
- 9 March, 2022: Finished reading
- 9 March, 2022: Reviewed