Customer Reviews
Great for nuturing an interest in the outdoors - By: H. Jones, 10 Jun 2008 
Helpfulin that one of my boys is named Eddie, but nevertheless the subject matter & way the tale was told was enough to persuade my 4 yr old that gardening is quite fun after all. Very gentle humour with the toddler, Lily continually trying to eat worms & soil: so true to life!
After having read the book my 4 yr old was suddenly interestedin worms & soil & digging - no other book has sparked his interestin the same way.
Really good ideas about what to plant & how (especially a bean wigwam) & notes at the end to help parents with planing a veggie plot, but also realisticin realising not every garden has a large swathe of earth that can be dug up asin Eddie's Garden.
What I really liked too was that Eddie has good ideas that his mother adopts showing a respect for the child & that they too can contribute & are not always just doing what the adults suggest.
There is quite an obvious one-parent-family slant to the book for adults, but equally the father figure may just be away at work for those who don't wish to deal on that aspect of it. My eldest certainly didn't even question it.
Lovely illustrations & a really good read. I'd say suitable for a book loving 3yr old +. My 2 yr old certainly won't sit through it, but my 4 yr old loves it.
Another good read from Sarah Garland - By: A reader, 23 Oct 2006 My two young boys LOVE Sarah Garland books, & I have searched high & low to purchase the other books she has written (sadly they are hard to find). We were then glad to find this newer story about two children & their mother starting up a small vegetable patchin their small town/suburban looking back graden. It is typical of Graland's style with interesting & conversation starting pictures. Often enough with her other books (which have very little words) I would invent longer stories interwoven with her pictures & give people names etc, here the story is written out fully. Interesting starting point for children learning about planting seeds, watching them grow, about bugs which help our plants (ie. lady birds) & bugs which don't (slugs). Story culminates with Grandad visiting & being overcome by the brilliance of their small garden & then the picnic they prepare & share with their home grown produce.
Garland's books would be ideal for single parent families as the ' father figure' is absent from all of her books that we have read.
lovely picture book for budding gardeners - By: , 11 Jun 2004 
anyone looking for a book to interest small childrenin gardening should look at this lovely book, which tells how a mother & child plant a garden from seed, & also gives advice about good plants to try.
