cover image Lulu Crow's Garden: A Silly Old Story with Brand New Pictures

Lulu Crow's Garden: A Silly Old Story with Brand New Pictures

Lizi Boyd, Leslie L. Brooke. Little Brown and Company, $14.45 (32pp) ISBN 978-0-316-10419-7

Fresh colors and amiable animals invite readers into this whimsical book, which is based on L. Leslie Brooke's 1903 Johnny Crow's Garden. Here, all the action takes place in Lulu Crow's garden, represented by a structured background of violet-blue sky, soft-green hedge and honeydew-colored lawn. The story begins with Lulu Crow planting flowers and vegetables, then becomes a parade of Lulu's unusual acquaintances, among them Crane, Beaver and Goat. The text is comprised of near non sequiturs (""the Mouse/ Built a House,/ Where the Cat sat on a Mat/ In Lulu Crow's Garden""). The characters accept each new development with stuffed-animal serenity, their moods seldom shifting. At the conclusion, all 13 friends sit down ""in one big Row,"" where readers can name and count them. Boyd (What Would You Do if You Lived at the Zoo?) meets the playfulness of the rhyme with deceptively childlike gouaches; her images are in fact highly organized. The animals and greenery have wavy, organic shapes, but solid layers of paint give the art an almost stenciled look. A sunny mood, befitting the summertime setting, suffuses the proceedings from start to finish. Ages 2-6. (Apr.)