ALA Booklist (Mon Dec 01 00:00:00 CST 2014)

Cornell offers plenty of compelling reasons to give gardening a try, and she invites readers with all different levels of experience, space, and tools to garden with her throughout the seasons. An introduction hits the basics, such as evaluating your climate zone, available space, and soil. Four chapters, one for each season, include three projects each. Many of the projects require very few special supplies, and some encourage reusing items that may be bound for the trash. Both food and flowers are the fruits of all the projects, including growing your own avocado plant, making a strawberry basket, and forcing daffodil bulbs. Color photographs, worthy of glossy gardening magazines, are shown alongside drawings of each step of the projects, making them easy to follow even for young readers. Back matter includes more gardening websites to explore and links to suppliers of gardening supplies. This book encourages budding horticulturalists with the notion that gardening doesn't have to depend on having access to the perfect climate and location.

School Library Journal (Wed Jul 01 00:00:00 CDT 2015)

Gr 3-6 Whether they have a green thumb or not, kids will enjoy learning about mapping sunlight, testing soil pH, and choosing native plants to fill diverse garden spaces. These simple, inexpensive seasonal projects are designed to inspire minds, busy hands, and yield edifying results. Planting in pots or prepping a patch of yard has never been so fun. A cleverly formatted table of contents lists information on colorful mock plant tags, followed by a thought-provoking introduction. Instructions are clear, complete, and simple. Bright photos accompanied by pen-and-ink sketches provide user-friendly visuals. Whether composting, building stick bean poles, or creating a butterfly garden or terrarium, kids will gain a sense of scientific wonder watching their completed activities come to fruition. VERDICT A solid book for budding ecologists, landscape architects, and horticulturists. Kathryn Diman, Bass Harbor Memorial Library, Bernard, ME