Overview

A Garden For Grace - an art-book quality book of poems and drawings, written and illustrated by Ellen Mainville. For children from five to ninety-five. 68 pages, 8.5x11, over 50 full-color illustrations. Imagine a farm: Dad in the fields, Mom busy in the kitchen, and Grandma planting and weeding in her extensive flower beds. They are gardens she's created through many years, in every available space of her domain. She now has the leisure to putter, ""me"" time she could only steal in snatches as a busy farm-wife and mother. But what are gardens and leisure time without someone to share them? Along comes a little girl for Grandma to watch and to care for: a girl who also learns to love and care for Grandma's flowers-and who learns about life and love at the skilled hands of the wise old woman. The girl grows up, her parents retire, the farm is sold. The girl becomes a mother, then a grandmother herself. The descendants of Grandma's plants still live, transplanted to her own gardens. Grandma's lessons live too: in her memories, passed down to her own children, to grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and friends, and now to us all in her artwork and poems... A Garden for Grace explores family, love, and life through lessons taken from beauty in nature, and is also is a botanically accurate guide to 48 common garden flowers.

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9780996288323

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Reviews

More than flowers, the author also includes illustrations and poems about weeping willow trees, milkweed pods, the blush of autumn color on maple and other trees. 'Shyly they are waiting, shivering in the night, for winter's hand to wrap them in soft flannels of pure white.' Fittingly Mainville closes her book on a positive note saying 'So I will not end with snow sleeping gardens, winds that blow. I'll end with hopes of seeds to grow, and leave you with a golden glow.' The book, an exploration of family, love, and life through lessons inspired by the beauty of nature, is recommended for everyone from children 5 and older through the elderly, grandparents and great-grandparents. While the poems may be somewhat difficult for the very young, the illustrations should make deep emotional impressions on them. They are also an excellent way to teach them about some of the most widely grown garden flowers. --Pittsburgh Owl Scribe Whimsical, touching, and a pleasure to read as an adult or with children, A Garden for Grace by Ellen Mainville is a combination of original artwork and poetry centered around flowers from her garden. Mainville's floral illustrations are lovely and her animals realistic. Every page, sometimes two, is devoted to a single flower and poem. ... A great choice for spending time with children or reading on one's own, and a lovely gift idea as well. --Bookworlder

More than flowers, the author also includes illustrations and poems about weeping willow trees, milkweed pods, the blush of autumn color on maple and other trees. Shyly they are waiting, shivering in the night, for winter's hand to wrap them in soft flannels of pure white. Fittingly Mainville closes her book on a positive note saying So I will not end with snow sleeping gardens, winds that blow. I'll end with hopes of seeds to grow, and leave you with a golden glow. The book, an exploration of family, love, and life through lessons inspired by the beauty of nature, is recommended for everyone from children 5 and older through the elderly, grandparents and great-grandparents. While the poems may be somewhat difficult for the very young, the illustrations should make deep emotional impressions on them. They are also an excellent way to teach them about some of the most widely grown garden flowers. --Pittsburgh Owl Scribe

Author Information

Ellen Mainville was a schoolteacher, artist, writer, and so much more. She grew up on a farm in the north country of New York; living her whole life and, with her husband Mark, raising a family in this rugged ""foothills of the Adirondacks"" region. Her writing features nature and family, finding strength and resiliency in both as she has grown and prospered through good times and in bad. Ellen died in 2021, frantically striving to finish A Garden For Grace as she slowly succumbed to vaccine-breakthrough Covid-19.

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