Lily's Garden of India

by Jeremy Smith, Rob Hefferan (Illustrator)

Lily’s mother makes everything an adventure, including her magical garden full of exotic and beautiful plants from all over the world. When Lily visits the Indian section of the garden, she discovers her own adventure. Through the power of imagination, the plants come alive and Lily finds herself in India. There she sees how the plants are used in Indian culture—a jasmine flower decorates a girl’s hair, a banyan tree becomes a chapel, and a neem tree offers up its berries in a New Year’s treat. Illustrated in the beautiful jewel-toned colors of India, this story comes with a glossary and additional reference pages for children to learn more about the topics presented in the book.

Genres: Picture Books

32 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Lisa Skripps · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Lily’s Garden of India, Jeremy Smith introduces us to Lily. Lily is an adorable little girl, who enjoys nothing more than the “adventures” that her mother creates for her. Lily’s favorite thing to do is spend time in her mother’s garden, which has various plants from all different countries in the world. Lily takes readers on a vivid and exciting trip to India. She describes various plants that are common in India from the Banyan Tree all the way to the Lotus blossom. Lily learns about why each plant is sacred and important to the Indian culture. Readers will fall in love with Lily’s spontaneity and her eagerness to explore. This book also features a very helpful guide and glossary to the wonderful plants and flowers that are common in India. It also gives a description of important holidays and festivals. I would have liked to see more of these holidays and festivals incorporated into the actual story. Overall, I enjoyed this book and think that it gives children a good introduction to the plants and flowers of India.

[Slayermel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lily and her Mom have a wonderful garden full of exotic flowers from around the world. One section of the Garden is full of flowers from India. Lily goes into this part of the garden and becomes enthralled with the flowers as they explain to her who they are, where they are from and why they are important to Indian culture.

The children in my group really seemed to enjoy this story and had pointed out several things in the bright beautiful pictures.

[Lindsay · Rating 5 out of 5]

flowers, gardens, family, India, adventure