In Our Garden

It’s raining in a city, and “most days, I feel gray too,” but a trip to the corner store gives Millie an idea: a garden. Millie tells classmates and teachers about the rooftop garden atop a former apartment building, “more than an ocean away.” Spreads by Crowton pull back, portraying the energy of big groups, indoors and out, as doll-like figures of varying abilities and skin tones plan, bring supplies, and set up the beds. Miller writes even lines of prose poetry that sometimes burst into buoyancy (“Our high-in-the-sky, thought-we’d-try-garden”), showing how working a plot of land follows the child’s own experience: “Maybe I’m like our seeds./ Stuck in new soil. Hoping to grow.” Values of speaking up, persistence, and patience are all embraced in a quiet tale of settling into a new community. Ages 3–7. (Mar.)