The Garden We Share

English full color throughout $ 17.95 US / $ 23.95 CAD Hardcover / 8.5 x 11 32 pages / ages 4 to 8 ISBN: 978-0-7358-4484-1


The Garden We Share

To everything there is a season in this beautiful story about gardening, seasons, and treasured memories.

This inspiring picture book written by Zoë Tucker and illustrated by Julianna Swaney—the #1 New York Times bestselling illustrator of We Are the Gardeners by Joanna Gaines—celebrates the friendship between a young girl and an elderly woman as they plant seeds in a community garden alongside friends and neighbors, waiting for the seeds to flower. By mid-summer, the friends welcome a rainbow of color in the garden and picnics in the sun. At harvest, the young girl’s elderly friend is bed-ridden, but jubilant as they share baskets with red tomatoes and snap peas amid the sweet smell of lavender. When the last leaves fall, everything is different. But in the spring, hope arises anew.

The Garden We Share is a gentle book overflowing with big lessons about life and death, the importance of experiences shared and the multitude of ways that the earth sustains us, even through great loss.
Alice Cary, BookPage, starred review

What sets this one apart from other garden fare is the exploration of the community garden as a space for relaxation and gathering. Tender as a spring seedling.
Kirkus Reviews

The process of tending to a garden, and to friendships, is beautifully delineated as the women guide the girl through the stages of gardening and they all wait, visiting, napping, reading. The text conveys the sights, smells, and sounds of a garden, while the illustrations, done in pastels, feature the garden’s plenty in gorgeous detail.
Booklist

Tucker’s lyrical prose emphasizes sensory experience.., while delicate accompanying illustrations by Swaney are washed with sage green and accented by rust oranges and warm harvest reds.
Publishers Weekly

Tucker’s story is a beautiful one to share with Pre-K to second grade readers, while Swaney’s illustrations fill each two-page spread with flowers, seed packets, rainbows and all things beautiful. This is a great gift book for gardeners to share with their young friends.
Children's Literature Reviews

One short sentence of nine words will break your heart. Yet this book sows hope and renewal. Simply and lovingly it shares what the garden teaches - evergreen lessons - to everything there is a season, life goes on, and spring always comes. A perfect grafting of pictures and words. I loved it.
Alana Haley, Schuler Books

Heartwarming and poignant, this gentle story about making dreams and flowers and veggies grow, about the changing of seasons and the passage of time, is a beautiful reminder of the lifelong sustenance offered by food and friendships.
River Dog Book Co.

Through her descriptive words, Zoe Tucker gives readers a true sense of place and the passing of seasons, even human ones. She has captured and presented to readers the miracle of growing flowers and vegetables from seeds. Most of all, through this story, we know this act is better shared with the best of friends.
Librarian's Quest

  • Kids' Indie Next Pick, March 2022
  • Society of Illustrators Original Art, 2022