This fine debut is a heartwarming story about a special bond a young Native American girl shares with her grandfather. Papa, as Rosalie calls him, is a wise man who teaches Rosalie about gardens and life. He shares tidbits of wisdom as they tend the garden together, calling seeds tiny promises and explaining when some newly planted peas die that, Everything has its time to die. New or old, it doesn't matter. Even with Papa's wisdom firmly planted in Rosalie, she is devastated by his death, which occurs shortly before her tenth birthday. She cries often, seeks solace in her garden, where she can still smell Papa, and plants rosebushes by Papa's grave. Cordova's pleasant childlike pictures provide a window for children to watch the blossoming of Rosalie's relationship with Papa and see Rosalie's grief as well as her growth, both physical and emotional. The garden scenes are particularly lovely, bursting with vibrant colors and patterns. Youngsters who have lost a loved one or who share a special relationship with an older adult will relate to this touching story, which clearly shows what healthy grieving is like.

Young Native American Rosalie learns to garden from her grandfather, who can grow everything but the blue roses she yearns for. After he dies, he appears with blue roses in a dream, reminding Rosalie that "we're in different gardens now." This absorbing, lyrical book's only misstep is its clunky, literal ending: Rosalie finds blue roses on her grandfather's headstone. Expressive paintings convey the close intergenerational bond.

When Rosalie is born, her grandfather plants a rose bush in the garden. As she grows, Papa, as she calls him, teaches her to garden, even putting stinky dead fish in the ground to nourish the seeds. The neighbors say Papa has a green thumb, but Rosalie is relieved to see that their thumbs stay brown! But she notices as Papa's cough gets more frequent, his braid grayer, and his face more wrinkled. He has her dig the dead plants under so that they will, like the fish, enrich the ground: in a garden, he says, "Nothing ever really leaves." When her grandfather dies, Rosalie dreams of him in a heavenly garden, where the roses are—not pink, yellow, and red like hers—but blue, like the ones she had begged for as a child. When she and her mother go to tend Papa's grave a year later, she finds the roses planted there are blue, just as in her dream. Newcomer Boyden's prose is filled with color and imagery and impasto acrylics give a wonderful hieratic quality to the pictures. The small house, the well-loved garden, the profusion of roses, and Native American Rosalie and her family are formed of strong geometric shapes and richly colored patterns. A gentle story of family ties, loss, and dreams. (Picture book. 5-9)

K-Gr 3 Since Rosalie's birth, her grandfather has cared for her while her mother works in a fish cannery. Their happiest times are spent in their garden among the flowers. There are several rose bushes of various colors, but the child is disappointed that there aren't any blue ones. When Rosalie is almost 10, her grandfather dies. She and her mother miss him terribly until Rosalie dreams of him in a magnificent garden with blue roses. On her next visit to his grave, she finds the tombstone wreathed with them. The message of death as a part of nature's cycle is somewhat heavy-handed, and the magical ending jars a bit. Trish Cooke's The Grandad Tree (Candlewick, 2000) and Adjoa J. Burrowes's Grandma's Purple Flowers (Lee & Low, 2000) also connect a grandparent's death to the natural world. What sets Boyden's work apart is her depiction of contemporary Native American culture, with Rosalie's family living in a small-town community. Their everyday life and loss connect them to universal experiences of growth and death that cross cultures. Córdova's paintings have a static quality that reinforces the reflective tone of the text. Although not a first purchase, the book would be suitable for one-on-one sharing with children who are mourning a grandparent or other relative. Kathy Piehl, Minnesota State University, Mankato