Amanda and the Magic Garden

Amanda the Witch #2

by John Himmelman

Amanda's garden, grown from magic seeds, is a great success until its vegetables cause the animals who eat them to grow to giant size.

32 pages, Hardcover

First published March 31, 1987

About the author

John Himmelman is the author and illustrator of more than sixty books for children, including Chickens to the Rescue. He lives in Connecticut with his family.

According John's Facebook page, he has been "making up stories and scribbling pictures since I could hold a crayon in my hand. It became my job in 1981, when my first book, "Talester the Lizard" was published during my last year in college (School of Visual Arts)....It behooves a writer to try and turn what interests them into their work. I've been fortunate to do that with my love of nature, with books - for adults and children - focusing on different natural history topics."

Reviews

[Abigail · Rating 3 out of 5]

When Amanda the Witch is given some seeds by Greenmoss the troll, the vegetables she ends up growing cause chaos for her and her animals friends in this amusing picture book from author/illustrator John Himmelman. The gigantic vegetables eventually make all of the animals enormous, and Amanda has her hands full trying to get them back to their normal size before something awful—being sprayed by a huge skunk, having her house destroyed by a rapidly growing bear—happens...

After being mostly indifferent to Himmelman's first book about this character, Amanda and the Witch Switch —I didn't dislike it, but didn't love it either—I wasn't sure how I would react to Amanda and the Magic Garden. Happily. I can report that I found it quite amusing, appreciating the deadpan humor in the story, and the way it was captured and accentuated in the colorful artwork. The scene in which the bear insists on eating the turnip, and then, finding himself growing, admits "I guess I shouldn't have eaten it," was particularly droll. All in all, this is one I would recommend to picture book readers who enjoy humorous stories about witches and magic. It is not necessary to have read the first book, to fully appreciate this one.

[Courtney K]

This is a fun story with an unexpected twist. I'm not sure that my 4-year-old really got it, though.