Linh's Rooftop Garden

Where in the Garden

by JaNay Brown-Wood, Samara Hardy (Illustrator)

Linh searches for blueberries in her rooftop garden in this vibrant exploration of gardening and healthy eating, from the Where in the Garden? series.

Linh is having a picnic in her rooftop garden for all of her friends, and she needs help searching for blueberries to finish preparing her dishes. What do we know about blueberries? They’re small, blue, and grow on bushes—and, just a second, is that a blueberry? No, that’s a gooseberry. Where, oh, where could those blueberries be? Can you help Linh find them in time for her picnic?

The fourth title in the Where in the Garden? picture book series stars a young Asian girl who tours her rooftop garden with her mom to explore the fruits and vegetables growing there. Playful text guides young readers to hunt for visual clues and compare and contrast the unique characteristics of blueberries against peaches, strawberries, tomatoes and other produce that grows in Linh's rooftop garden.

Artist Samara Hardy brings this multi-layered story to life with vivid, cheerful illustrations created from layers of hand painted ink and watercolor texture. Back matter includes a tasty blueberry and banana pancake recipe for little chefs and their adult helpers to try together.

Series Overview: Featuring a diverse cast of characters, the Where in the Garden? series of four picture books explores gardening and farming during every season of the year. Perfect for early childhood and elementary education units on agriculture, farming, gardening, and healthy eating.

Genres: Picture Books, Food, Gardening, Storytime, Childrens, Fiction, Stem

32 pages, Hardcover

First published March 21, 2023

About the author

JaNay Brown-Wood, PhD is an award-winning children’s author, educator, and scholar. Her first book Imani’s Moon won the NAESP Children’s Book of the Year Award, and her second book Grandma’s Tiny House: A Counting Story received a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly and won the CELI Read Aloud Book Award. She has several poems published including Falling Leaves in the poetry anthology Thanku: Poems of Gratitude (Lerner/Millbrook, 2019) a Chicago Public Library’s Best Informational Books for 2019, an American Library Association Notable Children’s Book, and a Notable Children’s Book for the Global Society. She has more than seven forthcoming books including Shhh! The Baby’s Asleep (Charlesbridge, forthcoming 2021), Where in the Garden a four-book series (Peachtree, forthcoming 2021, 2022, 2023) and Jam, Too (Nancy Paulsen Books/Penguin Random House, forthcoming 2023). She is represented by the fabulous Karen Grencik of Red Fox Literary. Learn more about her here at www.janaybrownwood.com or follow her on Twitter @janaybrownwood.

Reviews

[Ophelia · Rating 5 out of 5]

i learned a lot about blueberries! i used to be as small as one of them

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this series! These books are great introductions to farming and gardening. They help enrich vocabulary and background knowledge for preschoolers.

[The Silvan Reverie | Sarah Street · Rating 5 out of 5]

Linh is preparing for a rooftop family brunch party and needs to find some blueberries in her rooftop garden. We follow Linh as she hunts around the garden for blueberries, seeing and learning about a wide range of fruits and vegetables along the way. The narrative here is nice and flowing and the illustrations are vibrant and rich. There is much to love about this book as well as the others in the 'Where in the Garden?' series! I feel like the senses are engaged throughout the story here and gardening is celebrated in an imaginative way. I think this story is particularly lovely for urban dwellers and an inspiration for ways to engage with nature and gardening while living in the city.

***Note: I was given a review copy of this book via Peachtree Publishing. Opinions are my own.

For more new and upcoming nature-based books for children in 2023 visit my blog post at:
https://thesilvanreverie.com/2023/04/...

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Linh needs to pick blueberries from her rooftop garden for her family's brunch party. She looks all around her garden to find them, pointing out different fruits and vegetables growing there and asking if they are blueberries. Then each time, she explains why that plant is not a blueberry (pointing out its similarities and differences from a blueberry.) Will she find the blueberries before the party begins? Includes a recipe for homemade blueberry-banana pancakes.

[TheRetiredSchoolLibrarian |Mrs. Ferraris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brief summary: Lihn needs to find blueberries for their brunch and walk around the rooftop looking at all the fruits and vegetables. The girl describes what a blueberry looks like and compares those characteristics to each plant methodically until she finds them.

There is a blueberry and banana pancake recipe in the back.

Rating: 3.5/5 📗📗📗 1/2

[Pam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Readers move through Linh's garden with her as she searches for blueberries. We see so many other fruits and vegetables which match pieces of a blueberry's description but aren't the right item. The colorful illustrations capture the beauty of this garden. Simple to follow text for younger readers.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful book to prompt learning about plants and produce. Fits with primary science standards about plants and growing things. Connections for kids on where food comes from! This is book 4 in a series: 1 - Amara's Farm; 2 - Miguel's Community Garden; 3 - Logan's Greenhouse.

[Latifah S Ningrum · Rating 4 out of 5]

From searching for blueberries on the rooftop in this book, I discovered a rooftop garden. The illustrations in this book are beautiful, and the addition of a menu of recipes adds to the book's excellence, as it's quite rare to find cooking or processing tips.

[Andréa]

Note: I accessed a digital review copy of this book from the publisher through Edelweiss.

[Miss Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Linh searches her garden and eliminates other fruits and vegetables until she finds the blueberries she's looking for. Preschool and up

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super cute art and we asked my daughter to help Linh identify the blueberries :)

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adore this series of picture books that gently teach readers about various garden plants. The illustrations are so calming and lovely.

[Panda Incognito · Rating 2 out of 5]

This educates kids about fruits and vegetables, and about the process of elimination, but there's no story to make this engaging as a picture book.

[Jaime · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fruit

[Awjtf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved it!

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This "Where in the garden" series is wonderfully enjoyable, and my kids liked finding the blueberries in this one! 🫐

[Tiff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful book to learn about different fruits. Bright open illustrations of the colorful types of vegetables and fruits.

[Annie · Rating 2 out of 5]

My son and I laughed and laughed about how confused this girl was about what a blueberry is.

[Juju Andalon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute book for pattern recognition and identification. Also, a great intro to home gardens and community gardens.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful book to prompt learning about plants and produce. Fits with primary science standards about plants and growing things. Connections for kids on where food comes from! This is book 4 in a series: 1-Amara’s Farm; 2-Miguel’s Community Garden; and 3-Logan’s Greenhouse

[Marie-Pier Dodier · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pour découvrir les arbres et arbustes fruitiers. Utilisation de "myrtilles" au lieu de bleuet.