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.    

Find your copy here  

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Princess BMX by Marie Basting

2019

Princess Ava finds a portal that takes her from the colourful kingdom of Biscotti to Camden, London.  Here she learns to ride a BMX bike and become rather good at it.  But the portal is used by others including her wicked aunt, Odette, who tries to turn the kingdom of Biscotti into a theme park for our world. The usual battle of good against evil ensues and Ava is helped by her BMX friend from the other world, Ethan.   

Unusually here Marie Basing uses a first person narrative.  However this really works as it gives us a real sense of Ava’s personality. 

This is a long book – some 282 pages. The text is blocked and an adult font is used but it is double-spaced. Each chapter heading is illuminated with a monochrome sketch.  Throughout the books are further monochrome illustrations by Flavia Sorrentino.