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Book Review: Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt

By Kayla Rochelle April 5, 2021

Recommended for ages: 5 - 8 years

Spring has sprung! The birds are out singing, the worms are crawling out from their holes and with Earth Day just behind us, this is the perfect time of year to get your hands in some dirt! Living in Manhattan our dirt-digging is mostly reserved for sandboxes and the occasional house plant. Since we won’t be getting our hands truly dirty, we need to turn to some trusty books to teach us all about gardening. ‘Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt’ by Kate Messner is another book in her ‘Up and Down’ series that explores what is happening both above the ground and simultaneously under. The descriptions of how carrots grow underground, how roots work and the importance of bugs to the ecosystem of a garden is a start but it’s the illustrations by Christopher Silas Neal that help to make the who system make sense. This book beautifully shows how fun gardening is without taking away from how much work it is and what an important job each step of the process is. Since reading it together the gardening bug has bit and even our little aloe plants seem to be getting a lot more love. Maybe with all this gardening inspiration, we could even handle upgrading to a window herb box this year!



Kayla is a wife, mother and beach-loving book reader. She's a family photographer over at Kayla Rochelle Photography, and organizer of the Facebook group, Little One’s Literary Review. Her love of good books started as a child and only grew with the birth of her own daughters. Kayla's got an undying love of children's books with gorgeous illustrations and moral lessons. 


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