Beyond the Secret Garden: Children’s Literature and Representations of Black and Racially minoritised People by Darren Chetty and Karen Sands O’Connor,

2025   

 

This is a curated collection of articles, essays and blog posts almost all produced by Darren Chetty and Karen Sands-O’Connor. A Foreword is provided by Patrtice Lawrence. A bibliography at the end of the book takes up twelve pages. A detailed introduction tells us a little about how the book is meant to work and what its ethos is. This is followed by a useful discussion of the terms used: racially minoritised, Black, BAME, BME, People of Colour and Ethnicity.

The central premise of this book is that children who belong to the groups described above deserve to be able to read about people who look like them. Chetty and Sands-O’Conner go beyond this group, however. They also look at literature that includes the classical portrayal of such groups, dehumanisation through anthropomorphism, characters form the former colonies and Black, Jewish, Asian, African and LBTQ+ children.

The majority of the articles are form Books for Keeps and Sands-O’Connor’s blog The Race to Read though there are a few from other publications and by other writers. It is certainly refreshing to see a blog being taken seriously and deemed a useful resource.         

The cover says it all: white middle class classical characters enjoy a garden very similar to the one at Misselthwaite Manor, created by Frances Hodgson Burnett (the Secret Garden, 1911)  whilst the characters defined at the beginning of the book – and a few others -  labour outside, try to get into the garden and protest that ‘Representation Matters’.

This book is very readable even for the lay person as each article is short and written in plain English. 

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How to Grow a Garden by Frances Tophill and Charlotte Ager

2025   

 

Adult, fluent reader, ages 9 -99+, ages 7-11, Tophill Frances, Ager Charlotte, rewilding, environment, picture book, non-fiction, horticulture,   

This book would make an excellent contribution to a primary school library and interest wouldn’t be restricted to those who are passionate about the environment. It is aspirational.   

 A contents page near the beginning of the book identifies sections: Flowers and Herbs, Trees, Hedges and Edges, Grass, Fruit and Veg, Water, Exotic Plants and Further Resources.

Each double spread shows pictures of the topics discussed and provides bite-sized information.

At the end of each section there are suggestions about what you can do in each season.

The book opens with an introduction about how the text works. It invites the reader to join in an interesting journey.

Throughout the text there are many activities suggested to the reader.

There is a glossary and an index at the end of the book.

This works like a standard picture book in that the illustrations give additional information.  For the most part it uses a plain sans serif font with simple ‘a’s and ‘g’s. There are a few lines here and there in a font that looks like handwriting.

The book is in a quite a large format.    

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A Celebration of Beatrix Potter, Arts and Letters

 

2002 

In this volume are the responses in art and words by thirty artists to the life and work of Beatris Potter.

Excerpts of: The Tale of Peter Rabbit, The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin, The Tailor of Gloucester, The Tale of Two Bad Mice, The Tale of Mrs Tiggy-Winkle, The Tale of the Pie and the Patty-Pan, The Tale of Jeremy Fisher, the Tale of Jemina Puddleduck and The Tale of Mr Tod are reproduced with Beatrix Potter’s original illustrations.

The artists’ responses include a few words about their reaction to the story and what they know about Potter.

Artists are: Jon Agee, Jen Corace, Pat Cummings, Tomie dePaola, Tony DiTerlizzi, Matthew Forsythe, Stephanie Graegin, Chuck Groenink, Chris Haughton, Brian Karas, Jarrett Krosoczka, Betsy Lewin, E. B. Lewis, Renata Liwska, Wendell Minor, Kelly Murphy, Brian Pinkney, Peggy Rathmann, Chris Raschka, Peter Reynolds, Dan Santat, Judy Schachner, Laura Vaccaro Seeger, David Soman, David Ezra Stein, Melissa Sweet, Rosemary Wells, Brendan Wenzel, David Wiesner, Pamela Zagarenski, and Paul Zelinsky

Many of the artists recognise as I do that much of Potter’s work isn’t just about cute little animals; there is a darker side to nature.

This is a picture book, 110 pages long. Potter’s work is presented ragged right as it was originally but the texts form the artists are blocked. It uses a serif font with difficult ‘a’s and ‘g’s but this is large and double-spaced.

This is certainly a special edition but it is also packed with information.  It would also be useful for project work on Potter. 

 

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Wilding by Isabella Tree and Angela Harding

 

2024 

I hesitated to put his book on this site even though it is marketed as a children’s book and indeed I purchased it as such. In fact, anyway, it wouldn’t be out of place in a primary or secondary school library though interest in it would be restricted to those who are passionate about the environment.   

Primarily, though, I would define this as a picture book for adults – a rather odd concept in the UK though this is a strong genre in France and Belgium and other French-speaking countries.  The voice here is of one adult speaking to another. But children can often understand adults.

Isabella Tree and her husband Charles decided to rewild their 3,500 acre farm in West Sussex over twenty years ago.

The book opens with a note form the illustrator about her experience of working at Knepp.  After a brief introduction by Isabella Tree we are given an outline history of the farm including the all import years form 2000 up to the present day.

There is a lot of information about what happened and all of this is illustrated in detail.  Pictures really give us more detail about processes and indeed what everything looks like.  So, as in a picture book for pre-schoolers the pictures add to the information in the text, expect that this is non-fiction. The last few pages contain ideas for what we can do in our own environment.

There is a useful glossary at the end and then a list of further resources. This would be very helpful for a student who is conducting a project about rewilding.   

The book, in hard back, and large format is 96 pages long.  It uses a serif font but the text is ragged right. Each section of text is short but packed with information.

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Never Forget You by Jamila Gavin

  

2022

Dodo, Gwen, Noor and Vera meet at boarding school.  Just before the outbreak of World War II.   Dodo’s parents live in Germany and are Nazi sympathisers. Gwen acts as narrator and is at school because her parents live in India. Noor is from India, daughter to a Sufi philosopher and sees fairies.  Vera is Jewish.  Her parents and younger brother have been seized by the Nazis. She lives with her aunt and uncle in Paris.    

Noor’s story is partly true.  The other characters are fictional.

Dodo dies when she becomes involved in the rescue form Dunkirk. She has been working as a spy, looking into the work of Nazi sympathisers.

Gwen tells us very little about her work but it is top secret and involves maps.      

Noor becomes a member of SOE – Special Operations Executive. She works with the Resistance in France but is captured and executed.

Vera works for the Resistance in Paris and is very involved in forging documents in order to allow Jews to escape the Nazis.

There is some romance for all four girls and an upbeat ending for Gwen and Vera.   

This is a very long read – 500 pages of blocked text. There is a short note at the end about Noor Inayat Khan      

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