THE SUMMER MY FATHER WAS TEN

A careless, destructive act leads to lifelong friendship and a family tradition in this moving, stunningly illustrated story. Every spring when a father takes his daughter out to plant tomatoes, peppers, onions, marigolds, and zinnias in the yard, he tells her about the time when, in a few moments one August afternoon, he and his friends ruined the similar garden old Mr. Bellavista had planted in an empty lot. Stung with remorse, the boy watches Mr. Bellavista silently clean up the wreckage, and next April helps him plant a new garden, care for it, and enjoy its harvest. Mr. Bellavista is gone, but his memory is still part of each year's garden. Equally adept at both the freestyle brushwork of a Stephen Gammell and the light-drenched precision of a Ted Lewin, Shine places her figures in gracefully aging, neatly kept urban and suburban landscapes, capturing nuances of color, expression, and body language as well as the beauty and bounty of tiny, lovingly tended gardens (in the city, water is toted in a bucket from apartments). Brisson (Hot Fudge Hero, 1997, etc.) gives her characters plainspoken, unsentimental, distinct voices in this fine story of intergenerational friendship. (Picture book. 7-9)