Welcome to Buddy’s Book Review! A bi-weekly book review of our favorite children’s books here at The Nest Schools. We thoroughly believe in the power of literature, and we are excited to introduce wonderful new children’s books to our families in hopes that they will expand their own home libraries as we expand ours!
How will we review and rate each book? Each book will be rated in terms of likeness to our core values: kindness, fun, wellness, and innovation. Five beautiful feathers will be given for the core value we think that each book represents the best. Happy Reading!
Lola Plants a Garden by Anna McQuinn and illustrated by Rosalind Beardshow follows the story of Lola’s dream of planting her own garden.
It all begins with her favorite book of garden poetry that she reads with her mommy and soon they both begin planning the layout of her garden! Lola borrows books from the library to research gardening while her mommy helps her choose flowers from one of the books!
After making a list of supplies (and checking it twice!) the pair goes to a gardening store to purchase seeds. Using the seed packets as markers where each flower is planted, Lola organizes her dream garden. She accepts that it will take a long time to grow, but she can be patient!
While they both wait for her garden to grow, Lola and Mommy create a “flower book” together, including some of Lola’s favorite garden poetry, such as “Mary, Mary”. They continue to craft together, spending quality time while they wait for the fruits of their labor to sprout.
Soon enough, Lola sees little green shoots coming from the ground! Lola weeds the garden, working under the hot sun to get it exactly right. She knows that the garden must be tended to so that her flowers grow big and healthy.
When the flowers start to send their petals towards the sun, Daddy helps hang up the homemade bells that Lola and Mommy crafted together to scare away the birds.
Lola celebrates her arduous work at the end of McQuinn’s book by showing her friends her beautiful garden. Together, they enjoy the crunchy peas and sweet strawberries grown by her parents, and the tall flowers all around, planted by our dear Lola.
We give Lola Plants a Garden five feathers for INNOVATION, one of our core values at The Nest Schools. Innovation is the process of doing things in unique and improved ways to get the most efficient and improved results possible. Innovation requires an open mind, optimism, and the ability to take risks along the way. It also takes patience – you never know what the results may be each time you try!
The ability to be innovative is within all of us and Lola is a shining example. Lola works towards a goal, putting in research, partnered brainstorming, labor, and time to create her dream garden in her own unique way.
We recommend reading this book when discussing your child’s dreams and goals, as it charmingly lays out the process of setting a goal and accomplishing it. Lola accomplishes this goal for herself, her family, and friends to enjoy – bringing them all together to celebrate her hard work in the end! She shows patience, determination, and strength to reach the goal that she set for herself, providing inspiration to young readers.
This book would be appropriate to read during Spring as it focuses on gardening and spring weather, but can be read at any point!