Get Out(side)!
plant, camp, swim, explore and have fun!
It feels like summer in Austin, Texas, where the kids are out of school and zipping up and down our street on scooters and bikes. This month my book picks are all about going outside. Hang out in a corn field and see how those golden kernels get to our tables (truck lovers will adore this book). Or spend time in a “poison garden” with some of the weirdest (cutest) plants you ever did see. Or meet an AWOL octopus (based on a true story) . . . there’s so much to discover. Let’s dive in.
It’s Corn Picking Time! by Jill Esbaum, pictures by Melissa Crowton
Step into the world of a farmer who gets up at sunrise, puts on her cap and gloves and fires up the combine to harvest the corn. The rhyme is so good: “This is the combine, enormous and red. Grumbling and growling, it creeps from the shed.” And, “This is the spreader that spins clack-clack-clack, to scatter the chaff being spit out the back.” Paired with cool illustrations, this book makes me want to find a field and be a farmer.
It also inspires me to pull out one of my favorite summer recipes, a corn and black bean dip that’s severely stained with love, the marks of a great recipe. This one is great for chips and goes nice with a Fourth of July spread with all the red peppers.
Millie Fleur’s Poison Garden by Christy Mandin
Oh how I love a book with a little weird in it. Millie Fleur and her mom move to Garden Glen, “a place of sameness.” Each house looks the same, except the Fleur’s “tumbledown house on a scruffy hill at the edge of town.” When Milly plants a garden filled with weird (yet adorable) plants like Grumpy Gilliflower and Fanged Fairy Moss the uptight neighbors call it poisonous. But when she brings one of her plants to show-and-tell at school, the kids and teachers are intrigued and accept Millie’s invitation to tour the “Poison Garden.” They find it wonderfully weird and when she shares seeds, it begins to take root all over town. “The yards that were once identical now sprouted unique personalities.”
Based on a real garden at Alnwick Castle in Northumberland, there’s more to learn at the back, including information about real wonderfully weird plants like Snapdragons and Spider Plants. I was honestly sold at these lines in the book’s dedication page, “For anyone who’s ever felt a little bit weird. The world is more interesting with you in it!” And if that doesn’t get you, Mandin’s dedication reads, “In loving memory of my PawPaw John, who not only grew famously tall tomato plants and shared the seeds with me but instilled a love of gardening and nature in me from an early age.” I, too, have a PawPaw whose generosity and love of family influenced my life in wonderful ways.
Bear and the Three Goldilocks by Patrick Horne, illustrated by Dan Yaccarino
We begin with once upon a time but this fractured fairy tale features Mr., Mrs. and Goldie Goldilock who get out of the house and set up camp in the woods. They pitch tents, tune instruments for campfire songs, roast marshmallows and then toss dirt on their fire before hiking. Along comes Bear, smelling s’more’s. The first is too gooey, the second too chocolaty (is that possible?) but the third was just right. “Then he went back and ate the other two anyway . . .” This book is full of wry humor.
When the family returns they try to scare Bear off, but all it does is attract Mama and Papa Bear, who apologize for the mess their baby made of their campsite. But the family just hears growls and hightail it home. Don’t miss the final illustration, with a nod to another fairy tale favorite.
The Escape Artist by Thor Hanson, illustrated by Galia Bernstein
Oh how I love a story based on a true story. This is the incredible tale of an octopus named Inky who escapes his tank at an aquarium. He’s an octopus with personality. “He liked playing games and always had tricks for the keepers who scrubbed out his tank, like squirting their faces with water or giving their brushes a yank.” And an octopus with deep questions. “Aquarium living was easy, and Inky felt safe and well-fed. But a tank can’t contain an octopus brain, and questions still swam in his head.”
Told in well-done rhyme, Inky wonders if he could live in a tank without walls. When the lid to his tank is left slightly ajar one night, he escapes through the small gap. The writing is brilliant. “An octopus body is boneless, like Jell-O wrapped up in a sack. It’s easy to squeeze with no kneecaps, no knees, no skull, and no spine in its back!” He took a deep breath before leaving, but his protective slime wouldn’t last long. The illustration of Inky slipping down a floor drain is so great.
The next day, his keepers search everywhere looking for Inky (including the toilets), and find a slime trail that stops at a small drain. “One hundred and sixty-four feet through that pipe he hauled himself into the sea. Then stretched his arms wide and swam off with the tide. Inky had set himself free.” Such a great book! It is good to be outside, and to be free. At the back, you’ll find the true story of Inky and other great octopus facts.
Sometimes going out means running errands, which doesn’t have to be boring. Sure there’s all that waiting while mom fills out forms at the post office, shops at the farmer’s market, and stops to chat with a friend. But if you keep your eyes open, there are plenty of things in this world that are far from boring. I love the rhyme that tells the story of a simple day where wonders abound.
Chance encounter.
Curbside chat.
“How’s the garden?”
“Love your hat!”
Panting puppy.
Leash in knots.
While we wait,
we count her spots.
I also really, really love the illustrations of these cute sisters with their mom, that capture the day so well.
Happy Little Things
the kids I met at a recent homeschool conference, each one as unique as the plants in Millie Fleur’s garden
watching a woman spin wool into thread at that same conference, like magic
stepping outside at a wedding, and encountering an enormous rainbow that drew half the people out, all of us marveling
My name is Meredith Davis, and I’m an award winning writer of middle grade books, a former indie bookseller, founder of the Austin chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and graduate of Vermont College of Fine Arts with an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults. Find teaching resources and author visit information on my website at www.meredithldavis.com. Mother to three, Nana to two, I live with my husband and a crazy doodle in Austin, Texas.
Hooray for rainbows and summer offerings! Peace to you, Meredith!