April RandomKIT - Enchanting Garden Visitors

As I sat here watching my husband clear the yard and prepare the flower beds, I thought of all the creatures that would soon be visiting. So that is this month's theme. Who is visiting your enchanted garden?

You could be visited by mythical creatures like fairies, gnomes, and nymphs.
You could be visited by charming baby rabbits, squirrels, and other woodland creatures.
Maybe the birds are visiting to steal your seed before it is planted or the butterflies and bees are coming to pollinate.
Maybe children or grandchildren are frolicking and playing in the garden while they visit on this spring day.

Read about any visitor, in any shape or form, preferably while sitting in the garden.

I will be reading Fairies: Real Encounters with Little People by Janet Bord

And don't forget to visit the enchanting WIKI

Oh, I love this theme!

My first thoughts are two possibilities:

Always Coming Home by Ursula K. Le Guin because home is where your garden is
To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara since etymologically paradise means a garden

I am not sure what to read yet, but I love this theme and it is such an original idea! And the picture you chose is lovely, too.

That's an interesting theme. I will have to have a bookshelf browse, to see what might fit.

The graphic is beautiful and evokes spring in the garden. I have several possibilities for this one, checking things out now.

Well, I'm not sure "enchanting" is quite the word I'd use, but my garden is regularly visited by a couple of wood pigeons, of whom against my better judgment I've become quite fond, and so I am hoping to get to Andrew Blechman's Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga of the World's Most Revered and Reviled Bird.

If I can get to the RandomKit in April, I'm hoping to read Kij Johnson's story collection At the Mouth of the River of Bees.

We are living in an apartment but luckily it is on the top floor and we have quite a large patio. My husband does a lot of container gardening and he is able to attract a lot of butterflies. So my book for this month's RandomKit is going to be The Butterfly Garden by Dot Hutchison - which sounds lovely and reminds me of our gardening efforts but is, in fact, about a serial killer!

>9 DeltaQueen50: Oh, the serial killing fits gardens too, I've been guilty of more than I want to confess!

>10 clue: Now you've intrigued me!!!

>2 LibraryCin:, >4 MissBrangwen:, >5 Helenliz: Glad you enjoy the theme
>9 DeltaQueen50: I have been wanting to read The Butterfly Garden for a long time. Look forward to your review.
>10 clue: I am also intrigued. Tell us more.

>8 KeithChaffee: This post reminded me of The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, so I might read that one. It has been on my shelf for ages!

>8 KeithChaffee: - Thanks, Keith for that idea of bees. I think I'll try to read The Murmur of Bees by Sofia Segovia.

>13 MissBrangwen: I read that book years ago and really liked it! I think you're in for a treat.

I'll be reading The Dirty Duck who I'm sure would gladly visit the garden!

We don't have anything resembling a garden, but we do have a nice yard that attracts all sorts of wildlife--we live in Florida, after all! Our regular visitors include owls, so I think I'll slot in Owls and Other Fantasies here, given that I'm behind on poetry-reading for the year and I'd already been thinking of this for the alphakit!

We do see quail, or rather their tracks more often, so I think I will read That Quail, Robert that has been hanging around on my shelf for ages.

A couple of titles came up on my tbr using "gardens" in a tag search:
Red Lily / Nora Roberts
Back in Blossom Street / Debbie Macomber

Bees:
Our Native Bees / Paige Embry

Birds:
The Homing Instinct Bernd Heinrich

"Red Lily" has been on my tbr for so long and keep trying to get to it and failing. I think "The Homing Instinct" has also been on my tbr for a long time (as has the Macomber book, really). But the most appealing one to me at this time is "Our Native Bees"! I might see if I can get to a couple of them!

>18 Tess_W: I liked that book. Hope you enjoy it, too.

A friend of mine just lent me a bunch of Nora Roberts books - one of them, Jewels of the Sun, looks like it could fit - the back cover mentions that the protagonist moves into Faerie Hill Cottage, and it looks like there is some magic, so we'll see!

I'm still figuring out all of my April reading, so something else may end up fitting also.

I just read a children's book called The Day the Phones Went on Vacation which contained lots of cute illustrations of animals and plants, including three wise owls and many giggling frogs. I also read a children's book entitled The All Saw a Cat which contains illustrations of cats from the perspectives of many beings, including a mouse and a fish, as well as the cat itself!

I read Ivy, Angelica, Bay in the weekend, and found out that C L Polk had written another story in the same universe St. Valentine, St. Abigail, St. Brigid, which I read yesterday, scraping in under the line for an April challenge.
In both stories, bees are central to the plot, and they do indeed live in an enchanted garden (or at least on the rooftop of an enchanted townhouse)

I read The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
An interesting concept and a neat comparison to the prickly hedgehog. Barbery’s two main characters are highly intelligent autodidacts, a difficult feat to pull off successfully and not as appealing as I expected.

I have decided that I am not going to finish my choice for this Cat. The Butterfly Garden by Dot Hutchison is weird and unbelievable. I don't mind the darkness of the story but I am not a fan of the writing style or how the book has been edited.

I completed Robert, that Quail by Margaret Stanger 127 pages 3*

I read A Wing and a Prayer: The Race to Save Our Vanishing Birds because what is a garden without birds?

I have the charming illustrated book Fairy Flowers of the Garden that has always been in the back of my mind as I garden. Plus, I have a sun-facing bed that needs something so I can find inspiration in Barker's gardening fairies to decide.

>26 Tess_W: I liked that one.

I finished Jewels of the Sun that included a visit by Carrick, king of the fairies, to Jude Murray, on a 6-month visit to Ireland to find herself.

May is here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/360071#8508919.

Stretching a little bit, but I'm using this here based on the flower shop on the cover and the fact that Colette works at the flower shop.

Back on Blossom Street / Debbie Macomber
3.5 stars

Lydia runs a knitting store on Blossom Street and often runs classes. She is currently renting the upstairs of the store to Colette, who has recently started working closeby at the flower shop. Colette seems to have plenty of secrets and seems wary of opening up. Alix is recently engaged, but her “adopted” mother/friend and soon-to-be mother-in-law have taken over the plans and won’t listen to what Alix and Jordan actually want (though Jordan seems to not be bothered too much, either way). Lydia’s sister, Margaret works with Lydia, but when Margaret’s daughter is caught up in a carjacking, and is injured, Margaret is in full-on revenge mode and won’t stop until the carjacker is found and pays for what he’s done.

Some of the characters have returned from earlier books in the series, but I don’t think you need to read them in order; I leave so much time in between, I never remember the previous books, anyway. I found Colette’s story the least interesting, but they all rose above the 3.5 star “good” rating temporarily, but then it all ended up very (possible) sickly sweet and tied up in a way-too-perfect bow for my liking. Overall, though, it was a good story. I will continue to the next book.

>11 DeltaQueen50:,>12 lowelibrary: Oh, about the serial killing in gardens, it goes on all the time! I hate to admit it but I killed about 20 pansies last year when I picked up the wrong container and gave them vinegar/salt mix instead of plain water. Then, in the next week or so my neighbor's sweet yellow lab came over and had a lovely nap under the shade of the maple tree where I had just planted some pretty pink mallow I had stolen from the side of a highway. I hired someone to do some work in my backyard in the fall moving azaleas. Instead of replanting them in a neighboring bed he threw them in the yard waste recycling can just before I put it out.

It was truly a year of death and destruction!

Still reading through Birds and Us - very interesting.

The Homing Instinct / Bernd Heinrich
3.25 stars

Not just about birds, but butterflies, bees, insects, other critters, humans, even trees… and home. What makes a home and compels critters to create that home and either migrate to/from or just want to “cocoon” and stay there?

I found some of the info more interesting than others. Of course, it started off with birds and other critters that migrate and how they manage to find their way to/from. But the book expands far beyond, even speculating on humans and home. I have to agree with others that I could have done without the hunting chapter. Even though this wasn’t an audio book, I did lose interest at times, though, which is why the rating somewhere between “ok” and “good” for me.

I read The Blind Earthworm in the Labyrinth by Veeraporn Nitiprapha. I don't know if they are enchanting, but earthworms definitely visit gardens ;-)

>36 MissBrangwen: they're also necessary visitors.

I read Flower Fairies of the Garden by Cicely Mary Barker, one of my teenage favorites. I have the whole series and just love her use of color and the exactness of her illustrations. And her whimsy is welcome this spring!

Finished Owls and Other Fantasies by Mary Oliver--it's such a lovely, calm collection of poetry and essays, and this was a really good time for it. I'm glad the challenge spurred me toward it now! (Full review written.)

There are such amazing choices by everyone and so much variety in themes.

I finished two books for this month:
In Ashes Lie by Marie Brennan, historical fantasy featuring a fairy world under London in the 17th century.
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, children's classic featuring children visiting a garden.

Where the Forest Meets the Stars / Glendy Vanderah
3.75 stars

Jo is a Ph.D.(?) student studying bird nests and is renting a place beside a forested area. When a little girl with bruises appears in her yard and refuses to go home, or even tell Jo her name or where she belongs, the girl says she came from the stars, from another planet. She eventually gives her name as Ursa Major. Whenever Jo tries to call the police to help get the girl home, the girl runs away. Ursa manages to wrap her finger around Jo (and their neighbour, the “Egg Man” Gabe), as Jo and Gabe try to figure out how to figure out where she came from and get her home again.

I loved the bird information in the book. And the astronomy info. I guess most of that was nearer the beginning of the book. (There was also plenty of Shakespeare mentioned.) I wasn’t sure what I’d think about this child from the stars, or another planet, thinking there might be some magical realism in the book (not my thing), but I ended up really liking it. I also quite liked Jo and Gabe’s relationship, and Jo’s best friend, Tabby, was fun, too. I took a ¼ star off for the far too unrealistic, happy, everything-tied-up-with-a-ribbon ending.

I just finished Andrew D. Blechman's Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga of the World's Most Revered and Reviled Bird. Pigeons are regular visitors to my garden, I'm not sure I either revere or revile them, but I have learnt to find them quite entertaining. The book was interesting, as much an account of the humans who are obsessed with pigeons as about the birds themselves.

I have read Foxgloves and Hedgehog Days by Daniel Blajan, an absolute delight. Memoir about his garden including things that come to it. Rabbits, earwigs, hedgehogs (help with bugs and slugs), etc. I'm glad this topic was chosen for our Kit because I might never have read this otherwise.

>44 clue: that sounds lovely, I've just added it to my wishlist.

>43 Jackie_K: Maybe I should take a note of this, as I also get frequent visits from pigeons on my balcony, where they are not welcome.

I thought I didn't have a book for this month, but then I ran into Der grüne Fürst, a biography of Hermann Prince Pückler-Muskau. His lasting legacy are two English landscape gardens which he created at his castles Muskau and Branitz. They still exist (sort of, Branitz is now cut in half between Germany and Poland).