Indigo Blume and the Garden City

by Kwame Alexander, JahSun Mitchell (Illustrator)

Indigo Blume and the Garden City received a 2013 NAACP Image Award Nomination for Outstanding Children's Literature. Indigo Blume is a nine-year old girl who lives in the fictional city of Garden City. She decides to enter a "Go Green" contest, even though her friends won't help her with her big A Rooftop Garden. In the end, she is successful at cleaning up her community and building a garden with climbing beans so tall they almost touch the stars. A "Green" glossary is included, as well as a Read Aloud CD with a special song written and performed by SPEECH of ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT.

28 pages, Paperback

First published November 6, 2010

About the author

Kwame Alexander is a poet, educator, and New York Times Bestselling author of 21 books, including The Crossover, which received the 2015 John Newbery Medal for the Most Distinguished Contribution to American literature for Children, the Coretta Scott King Author Award Honor, The NCTE Charlotte Huck Honor, the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award, and the Passaic Poetry Prize. Kwame writes for children of all ages. His other works include Surf's Up, a picture book; Booked, a middle grade novel; and He Said She Said, a YA novel.

Kwame believes that poetry can change the world, and he uses it to inspire and empower young people through his PAGE TO STAGE Writing and Publishing Program released by Scholastic. A regular speaker at colleges and conferences in the U.S., he also travels the world planting seeds of literary love (Singapore, Brazil, Italy, France, Shanghai, etc.). Recently, Alexander led a delegation of 20 writers and activists to Ghana, where they delivered books, built a library, and provided literacy professional development to 300 teachers, as a part of LEAP for Ghana, an International literacy program he co-founded.

Reviews

[Sean Harding]

Alexander Assignment #7
Indigo Blume #2
Indigo Blume returns in this book where she builds a garden city in a thinly veiled be environmental and grow plants message, which is not a bad thing at all.
It could be great to read and then try and do something like this with a group of young readers.
It is not my favourite Alexander book but it has a lot of inherent value within the pages.

[Zoë Siobhan Baillie]

Gets read a lot in our house, brilliant message about community, bullying, environment, and doing what you enjoy regardless of peer pressure. I wish it was more widely available!

[Nicolas]

The message is good, the book is less so.

We discussed Kwame Alexander's output on a special episode of the All the Books Show podcast. Here it is: https://soundcloud.com/allthebooks/ep...

[Ohenewaa]

My 7-year-old loved this story. It reminded her of spending time in our patio garden and working in the Philadelphia Urban Garden during summer camp.

Thanks for such a beautiful and colorful story about growing your own food and making the community beautiful.
Ohenewaa

[Shana]

As you all know, I rarely review picture books or add them to my read list unless I like them a lot.
This one is MAINLY a review because the illustrations were amazing.
Has a great sing-song feel to it and cute message about the ability to go green in any setting.