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9781503768048

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The Chalk Garden by Sally Anne Garland, Sunbird, £7.99 Emma wishes birds would visit the concrete garden she decorates with chalk flowers - but they aren't tempted until she begins to tend a little patch of earth. A lush, joyful picture book, full of growth, colour and creativity. -- The Guardian * https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/may/26/childrens-and-teens-roundup-the-best-new-picture-books-and-novels * Emma longs for birds to visit her. But she doesn't have a garden with flowers and plants - just concrete slabs. Then a loose concrete block leads to something more and Emma is able to bring the concrete patio to life - but will her wish come true? Will a bird come? This is a charming picture book that reveals more than might be immediately seen at first sight. It is a simple story - one that will chime with contemporary themes around the environment. However, the author does not take us on a world tour. Rather, in keeping with a young audience she concentrates on the immediate and personal; Emma and the creation of a garden within her own living space - and without spelling out any lesson, perhaps, inspiring another child to follow her example. However, Emma is not the only one involved. The reader will gradually realise that in parallel, Emma's father is creating a garden for the family. While Emma's will bring colour and blossoms, his will bring fruit and vegetables. This is skilfully and subtly done - the view of the father brushing up leaves, his feet and the edge of a wheelbarrow in another spread and then the frames for the bean plants in the background. The illustrations are as direct and simple. Emma is very much the centre of the action; a very real little girl. Garland makes full use of each page sometimes to create vignettes that bring movement - the passage of the seasons, perhaps, attractively composed without panes, rather a continuous narrative. Then there are double page spreads which bring Emma and her plot into close-up. Inspired by chalk drawings created by children on walls and pavements, the colours and technique mirror the soft textures of chalk enhancing the quiet immediacy of the story. A very attractive addition to any bookshelf. -- Books for Keeps * https://booksforkeeps.co.uk/review/the-chalk-garden/ * Having recently moved to a new home with a garden made almost entirely from concrete slabs, young Emma is excited to hear the sounds of birds in the next door garden but none ever comes to hers. So, she tries to create a colourful environment in her own backyard using her chalks but all that comes is rain washing off the drawings and leaving everything grey once more. As she stands miserably thinking, that's my chance of attracting birds gone, she notices something green poking up through a crack in the paving stones, one of which wobbles when she steps on it. She calls her Dad and points it out. Dad's response is to move the slab. Emma is thrilled to see lots of minibeasts where the slab had been and so begins a process of rewilding an area of the garden. Emma is an observant child; she notices when the soil needs to be watered and little by little, green shoots start to push up, grown from the seeds blown in. She loves the ants. spiders, ladybirds and other small creatures but one thing is still missing. Summer days are warm and the shoots explode into brightly coloured flowers that attract pollinating insects and Dad has to remove more slabs to accommodate the burgeoning wildlife. Still determined to attract feathered visitors, Emma makes a bird, bath, feeders and more. Then finally she hears something she's been waiting for and working for. It's lovely to see the changes taking place in the gorgeous illustrations of transformation and one hopes that children will be inspired by Emma's efforts and, with parental consent, do some wild planting of their own so they too can become patient observers of the natural world. A blooming gorgeous, gentle story that I'd strongly recommend for home and classroom sharing; and I think, Sally Anne Garland's best so far. -- Red Reading Hub * https://redreadinghub.blog/2023/06/14/the-chalk-garden/ * Shortlisted for the Scottish Booktrust bookbug Picture Book Prize Little Emma clearly enjoys being outside, drawing colourful pictures in chalk on the concrete slabs of her garden. What she'd really like though is a garden full of birds. When a slab of concrete comes loose, she persuades her dad to take it away and we watch with her as it becomes a small patch of green, gradually sprouting with grass and flowers, attracting insects and eventually birds. This quiet, gentle story celebrates a child's connection with nature and the transformation that nature can bring about. Young readers will be fascinated watching Emma's garden change and each spread is full of nature for them to spot, name and discuss. Blooming lovely! -- LoveReading4Kids * https://www.lovereading4kids.co.uk/book/20745/The-Chalk-Garden-by-Sally-Anne-Garland.html * The Chalk Garden is a really lovely picture book, one that supports giving space to wild planting and which encourages children to observe nature and its changes, with patience. A child's family moves to a new house whose garden comprises concrete slabs. She hears birds singing in neighbouring gardens, but none visit this garden and so she starts creating a 'chalk garden' of colourful flowers to encourage them to visit - but none come. Seeing some greenery growing between a crack in a slab, she asks her father to remove it, and so begins a process of nature 'rewilding' this part of the garden, while her father creates a more managed vegetable patch alongside her wildflower patch. In the Chalk Garden, author and illustrator Sally Anne Garland shows us the process of how nature can take over an area, when given a chance, and we see the changes gradually happening, from the first wiggling worms in soil to the green shoots of wild plants, and finally an entire habitat of wildlife developing - even, eventually, the birds that the child so wants to visit. We gradually see the change in the garden through colour, as the pages move from concrete slabs to an explosion of colour of the real flowers alongside the chalk ones; it is beautifully done, giving us a real sense of the child's observations of the changes in nature. The illustrations of the 'chalk garden' the girl creates are lovely, and are bound to encourage children to want to create their own patch of chalk flowers. The Chalk Garden is a must for any home or class involved in creating a 'wild patch' or starting to develop an area of garden from scratch, or for just a better understanding of how nature develops when given time and space to do so. It encourages children to look for the slightest change in nature, and to understand that nature needs time to grow, so helping develop their patience in a world where so much happens so quickly. Highly recommended. -- Reading Zone Review * https://www.readingzone.com/books/the-chalk-garden/ *

Author Information

Sally Anne Garland grew up in a small town called Alness in the Highlands of Scotland. According to her parents, her first really good drawing, at the age of four, was a large mural in crayon on the sitting-room wall. She went on to study Illustration and Graphic Design at Edinburgh College of Art before settling in Glasgow, where she lives with her partner and their son. When she's not drawing or writing stories, she has fun reading books, watching movies, and going on walks.

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