The Invisible Garden

In a quiet story with few words, Arianne, a child with brown hair and an A-line dress, travels in a car to her grandmother’s red house. While adult party-goers schmooze, Arianne ventures into the garden and eyes a stone among the greenery. The journey takes a fantastical turn when the girl shrinks and, à la Thumbelina, races alongside insects while clinging to a flying dandelion puff. After tossing a stone into a lily pond, she jumps in herself and swims among corals and sea creatures, one of which develops into a dinosaur that takes to the skies. Ferrer, a graphic designer, illustrates with pronounced white space; shades of mossy green, gray, and plum; and attention to local and cosmic relative scale. Picard captures the magic of a solitary hour spent observing nature—and suggests where those observations might lead. Ages 3–5. [em](Apr.) [/em]