A book review of A Garden for Grace by Ellen Mainville
Stars: ****
Abcarlson Publishing (2021)
Poetry
68 pages
Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This post contains affiliate links.
Summary: A Garden For Grace – an art-book quality book of poems and drawings, written and illustrated by Ellen Mainville. For children from five to ninety-five. 68 pages, 8.5×11, over 50 full-color illustrations.
Imagine a farm: Dad in the fields, Mom busy in the kitchen, and Grandma planting and weeding in her extensive flower beds. They are gardens she’s created through many years, in every available space of her domain. She now has the leisure to putter, “me” time she could only steal in snatches as a busy farm-wife and mother. But what are gardens and leisure time without someone to share them?
Along comes a little girl for Grandma to watch and to care for: a girl who also learns to love and care for Grandma’s flowers-and who learns about life and love at the skilled hands of the wise old woman. The girl grows up, her parents retire, the farm is sold. The girl becomes a mother, then a grandmother herself. The descendants of Grandma’s plants still live, transplanted to her own gardens. Grandma’s lessons live too: in her memories, passed down to her own children, to grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and friends, and now to us all in her artwork and poems…
A Garden for Grace explores family, love, and life through lessons taken from beauty in nature, and is also is a botanically accurate guide to 48 common garden flowers.
A Garden For Grace
This is a beautiful poetry book for kids and adults alike. If you love flowers and poetry you will LOVE this book. The poems themselves are fun and the illustrations are AMAZING. I will provide a photo below so you can see what I mean. My words don’t do the illustrations justice.
There is no more than one poem per page, sometimes less so it’s not a huge book of poems at 68 pages but it’s enough to make it worth the purchase. I will be using the book with my kids for homeschool this coming year for what is called Poetry Tea Time. The quick explanation is we will read poetry and enjoy tea a few times a month.
This is definitely one you want to pickup to enjoy poetry.
One last sad thing…
“Sadly, after three years of detailed illustration and poetic crafting, educator Ellen was 98 percent finished with her book when she died of COVID-19 in September 2021. The book has been published posthumously, thanks to the help of Ellen’s loved ones.”
– Press Release
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