CECIL’S GARDEN

All it takes is listening to someone else’s foolish arguing to put your own such behavior into perspective. Such is the story here in this tale of Cecil the young rabbit and his siblings Posey and Jake. They wake to a perfect day to plant their garden. All goes well until they realize they have only enough room for five rows of vegetables, but they have seeds for six different varieties. Which to leave out? They fail to reach a consensus; they can’t even choose two with which they can plant half a row each. The sun gets too hot and they abandon the garden idea for the moment. Cecil is disappointed and he shuffles off to visit some friends. And what does he discover? The mice fighting over which toys to put in their bathtub—they have to throw out the water since there isn’t any room left. And the moles fighting over what time it is, but since they are underground, and can’t tell time to boot, they are condemned to argue on and on. By the time Cecil gets home, he has devised a simple solution: make the garden one row bigger. Keller’s (Growing Like Me, p. 187, etc.) story is light on its feet—much like her artwork, with its fine lines and colors of spring—as if to suggest that by allowing a little oxygen to circulate around most problems, an answer can be found. And at this level, she’s right. (Picture book. 3-6)