Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... McMinnville Public Library | Bunting | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Salem Main Library | JP Bun | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Salem Main Library | JP Bun | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Stayton Public Library | E BUNTING | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
In this warm and sunny picture book, follow the progress of a little girl and her father as they put together a wonderful birthday surprise for mom: a window box flower garden.
After the pansies, tulips, daffodils, geraniums, and daisies are purchased and dad and daughter take them home on the bus, they're lovingly planted in the window box. Candles on the cake are lighted--just as Mom walks in the door to find her daughter, her husband, and her birthday surprise.
"Wonderful, warm, full-color illustrations present scenes from novel angles, and depict a loving family with a sense of intimacy, sincerity, and joy."--School Library Journal
Author Notes
Eve Bunting was born in 1928 in Maghera, Ireland, as Anne Evelyn Bunting. She graduated from Northern Ireland's Methodist College in Belfast in 1945 and then studied at Belfast's Queen's College. She emigrated with her family in 1958 to California, and became a naturalized citizen in 1969.
That same year, she began her writing career, and in 1972, her first book, "The Two Giants" was published. In 1976, "One More Flight" won the Golden Kite Medal, and in 1978, "Ghost of Summer" won the Southern California's Council on Literature for Children and Young People's Award for fiction. "Smokey Night" won the American Library Association's Randolph Caldecott Medal in 1995 and "Winter's Coming" was voted one of the 10 Best Books of 1977 by the New York Times.
Bunting is involved in many writer's organizations such as P.E.N., The Authors Guild, the California Writer's Guild and the Society of Children's Book Writers. She has published stories in both Cricket, and Jack and Jill Magazines, and has written over 150 books in various genres such as children's books, contemporary, historic and realistic fiction, poetry, nonfiction and humor.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 1-A comforting, richly illustrated story about a birthday surprise. An urban African-American girl and her father buy plants, potting soil, and a window box at the supermarket, ride the bus to their apartment, and put together a colorful gift for the child's mother. Rhyming verse carries the brief story, while wonderful, warm, full-color illustrations present scenes from novel angles, and depict a loving family with a sense of intimacy, sincerity, and joy. A reassuring choice for reading aloud.-Barbara Peklo Abrahams, Oneida City Schools, Manlius, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
A plot about creating a windowbox garden scarcely portends the appeal of this lyrical, ebullient book. On a spring day in an urban neighborhood, a girl and her father visit the supermarket: ``Garden in a shopping cart / Doesn't it look great? / Garden on the checkout stand / I can hardly wait.'' The youngster's anticipation grows as the duo travels home--walking down the street, riding the bus, climbing the apartment house stairs--all the while guarding their flowers. Without contrivance or strain, Bunting's verse evokes the universal yet unexpected felicity of blooming color, and the author throws in a happy surprise at the end: the ``garden box'' is a birthday present for the girl's mother. Hewitt's intimate, oil paintings gain power through imaginative use of perspective and clean simplicity. The illustrations include just enough detail to prime side observations from pre-readers and still keep the focus on the verse. Fresh as a daisy. Ages 4-8. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
Hewitt's realistic oil paintings and Bunting's rhyming text pull the reader into a story of surprise and fun. The young narrator has, with the help of her father, assembled a 'garden in a shopping cart' to take home and plant in a window box high above the city as a birthday gift for her mother. The African-American child and her plants make a colorful picture in this story of the gift of love and beauty. From HORN BOOK 1994, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
A young girl carries a carton of potted flowers from the supermarket home and up the stairs; she and her father replant them in a window box and light candles on a birthday cake to surprise Mom when she comes wearily home from work. In Hewitt's expansive oil paintings, the girl's honey-brown face shines as brightly as the daisies and daffodils; Bunting's brief rhymed text (``Garden in a cardboard box/Walking to the bus/Garden sitting on our laps/People smile at us!'') celebrates the child's contagious happiness, the warm response of everyone who sees her, and the pleasure of having ``a color jamboree'' of flowers in the window of an inner-city apartment, high above the street. A simple, pleasing episode with a contemporary subtext. (Picture book. 4-7)
Booklist Review
Ages 3-6. From grocery cart to checkout stand, from bus to third-floor walk-up, an excited little girl totes home a heavy armload of flowering plants. Sitting on the newspaper-strewn floor, she and her father transplant them, creating a "Garden in a window box / High above the street / Where butterflies can stop and rest / And ladybugs can meet." The garden is much admired by passing pedestrians, but the true object of this labor of love will discover the surprise upon her return home. "Candles on a birthday cake / chocolate ice cream, too. / Happy, happy birthday, Mom! A garden box--for you." The simple rhymed verse, which skips along in pace with the child's anticipation, is smoothly integrated with the vibrant, lifelike paintings. The garden's progress from pots to planter is seen from several startling perspectives--from the little girl's lap, from the base of a staircase, from directly overhead, from street level. Prereaders can trace the floral motif, repeated in the child's tights, the bus passenger's dress, the birthday cake, and the plate, or they can discover such hidden treats as the girl's reflection in the bus mirror. Almost as a bonus, one splendid close-up of the blooms is accompanied by verse identifying five common flowers. This title succeeds both as an introduction to the pleasures of gardening, and as a picture of a family, African American in this case, in which gifts are fashioned by loving hands. ~--Elizabeth BushNON-BOXED REVIEWS