Samantha Thornhill

When Lily learns that her local community garden is under threat of destruction to be replaced by a parking lot, she rallies her friends, parents, and neighbors to help save their fruits and vegetables.

This title is part of a loose series involving a bunch of multiethnic friends. Each of these early readers gives a different character (and a different author) a chance to shine in their own story. I think there may have been a previous one about starting this neighborhood garden as there seemed to be hints of that. However, I have not read one like that and this book didn’t seem to require knowledge of a previous title in order to understand it. The book uses short chapters and fairly simple language to be accessible to readers still working on becoming proficient readers.

I love that this book talked about the power of a protest. Despite peaceful gatherings being a constitutional right, “protest” has become a dirty word in recent years unfortunately. What was particularly nice about this book is that it chose a fairly apolitical, non-controversial topic behind the protest – so it should find an audience across the political spectrum. Caregivers can then extrapolate from the story’s message to include other topics of interest to their families and communities so kids can learn to help support those as well. The book even ends with some questions/prompts to further discussion about other places in their community that might benefit from their volunteering and fundraising. As for the fictional garden, the book ends optimistically with the parking lot project delayed for a year – I’m glad that there’s some hope in this conclusion but there’s also the realism of how many fights worth having need to be fought more than once.

The illustrations are not really my style (more sketchy than realistic), but they are the same across the board for this loose series so that the characters are easily recognizable. They do show a diverse set of friends and neighbors, including those who use glasses and wheelchairs.… (meer)