Uncle John's City Garden by Bernette G. Ford

Abstract

Reviewed by: Uncle John's City Garden by Bernette G. Ford Elizabeth Bush Ford, Bernette G. Uncle John's City Garden; illus. by Frank Morrison. Holiday House, 2022 [32p] Trade ed. ISBN 9780823447862 $18.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9780823453085 $11.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R 4-7 yrs A blank, lifeless apartment building looms over an equally bare vacant lot full of carefully raked dirt when Li'l Sissy and her siblings arrive with towering Uncle John to begin a transformation. Each has a contribution: Brother, lima bean and corn seeds; Sister, tomato and onion; Li'l Sissy, okra. Mother comments later that they've landed on the fixings for succotash, which is fine with Li'l Sissy. There's planting, hoeing, weeding, and worrying about rainstorm washouts as the summer goes by, but the crops eventually yield a bountiful harvest; even after the relatives gather for a big barbecue (featuring, of course, a succotash side dish), there's plenty to bag up for everyone to take home. Morrison's paintings play with perspective and composition to easily capture the oversized presence of a towering Uncle John and the Brutalist sensibility of a housing project, in which even brick and fabric take on the chilly sterility of concrete. Meanwhile, the madly saturated colors of picture-perfect plants bring vibrancy, and the body language of the siblings is both sturdy and dynamic. A blink-and-you'll-miss-it end matter reference to support from the TERC organization, which develops math curricula, should send adult readers scrambling back over the text to notice how Li'l Sissy's frequent observations of height and length and amount—a believable preoccupation for the youngest of the sibs—can seed a flourishing math discussion. Copyright © 2022 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois