The Gardener

Product Information

Sarah Stewart introduces readers to an engaging and determined young heroine, whose story is told through letters written home, while David Small's illustrations beautifully evoke the Depression-era setting. As she works the garden in Murat's peaceful company, Hassie ruminates on her past life: the sibling rivalry that tainted her childhood and the love affair that left her with painful, unanswered questions.

The latter person followed the ghost of my young self through to the beamed kitchen and into a cold scullery. From these basics, Vickers explores Hassie’s traumatic affair, her prickly relationship with Margot, her exploration of the history of Nelly East and of Knight’s Fee, her wrestling with the misery of artistic hack work doing the illustrations for ‘Elfine’ whom she loathes, her growing interest in and talent as a botanical artist, her sense of the otherworldly in the garden, and her discovery of what love might and can actually be. Oh, I don't - I haven't dared to think much about that sort of thing", said Helen, almost lifting her hands to keep her off. It is that rarity, a pictorial delight that in 20 double pages gives more and more of itself each time it's read, and whose silent complexities reveal themselves with continuing pleasure. The Gardener is an American children's picture book by American children's book author Sarah Stewart, illustrated by her husband, David Small and designed by art director Lilian Rosenstreich.Had you asked me just five years ago, I would probably have said that a girl would have chosen The Gardener and that a boy would have chosen The Man Who Lost His Head (Mila's choice last time around).

Getting over” the loss of someone we love by way of a dramatic change in lifestyle is a familiar pursuit, in theory if not in practice. But it is in a secret place that Lydia Grace works on her masterpiece -- an ambitious rooftop garden -- which she hopes will make even Uncle Jim smile. The real reason was to escape from Robert, the married art dealer she still loves, and from her terrible grief at his having left her. As we reach the conclusion here is the ‘you’ again and we think … hang on, have I missed something…? All this she had from a Central Authority who lived in a board and tar-paper shed on the skirts of a razed city of whirling lime-dust and blown papers.

In my mind’s eye, my infant self went whizzing past the sober middle-aged person padding down the dusty stairs to the hall.

Viewed as a whole, though, the novel's narrative design emerges as instrumental to its central conviction, as set out in the prefacing letter: that “the certainties we construct are apt to be toppled by reality. Those just starting out will find just as much in this handbook as the seasoned countryside gardener. She paid her bill beside a stolid, plain-featured Englishwoman, who, hearing her inquire about the train to Hagenzeele, volunteered to come with her. Then she took her place in the dreary procession that was impelled to go through an inevitable series of unprofitable emotions. The books featured on this site are aimed primarily at readers aged 13 or above and therefore you must be 13 years or over to sign up to our newsletter.We then forget the tantalising ‘you’ and settle into the first-person narration we’re so familiar with in fiction. Together, these elements form a notion of the healing force present in nature, and the ever-present possibility of rebirth and joy. Sam Boughton is a British illustrator who lives in Devon and trained at the Cambridge School of Art. It is a shame, I think, that Vickers chose to set it in 2019; I can imagine its events unfolding in the summer of last year with virtually no changes necessary other than masks on Hassie and Murat as they wander around the garden centre.

A bit mawkish, but I’m not decrying this at all in the context of the novel: in fact I grew to like it the more Vickers revealed about Hassie and her self-image as someone who had grown up feeling unloved by her mother and outshone by her very beautiful, stylish and Cambridge-intelligent older sister, Margot. So far as she knew herself, she was not, she said, a child-lover, but, for all her faults, she had been very fond of George, and she pointed out that little Michael had his father's mouth to a line; which made something to build upon. A postman is rewriting people’s letters; things keep going missing in the Town of Vanishing; and 5 lives are about to be brought together by a lost cat with one eye! Lydia Grace Finch brings a suitcase full of seeds to the big gray city, where she goes to stay with her Uncle Jim, a cantankerous baker. We will be happy to offer you a full refund, replacement or exchange on any items excluding custom prints, Goldfinger + Tate furniture, face coverings and pierced earrings.The descriptions of nature and the garden are so evocative and I felt I could clearly picture the house, the garden and the characters. B y this time the village was old in experience of war, and, English fashion, had evolved a ritual to meet it.