The Curious Garden

by Justin on Aug.09, 2010, under Home & Garden

:Curious, Garden

10 Comments for this entry

C. Synnott
August 9th, 2010 on 4:28 pm
Review by C. Synnott for The Curious Garden
Rating:
The “curious garden” is absolutely beautiful as it wends it’s way around a drab, brown city. My 4 year old son (who also happens to be named Liam), loves pouring over the full spread illustrations of the garden. And I love the message of spreading a little green in the world.

Reply
T. Jonker
August 9th, 2010 on 5:24 pm
Review by T. Jonker for The Curious Garden
Rating:
Hello! My name is Mr. Message. You probably know me from my countless appearances in books, especially the “for children” variety. It’s my job to expose a universal truth or support a cause. Sometimes I even tell the reader how they should act. As you may know, I can be controversial.

Sometimes, people get upset when authors make it really clear that I’m coming to the party. They put me front and center, and the story takes a back seat. Hey, I can be preachy if that’s what the author wants! I don’t always raise a stink, though. Occasionally, authors cleverly sneak me into a story, making as little disruption as possible. The reader hardly knows I’m there.

Then you have an author like Peter Brown (Chowder, Flight of the Dodo) and his book The Curious Garden. In this book I tell kids that caring for the environment makes a better world. Peter somehow manages to to make me the center of attention, yet not so preachy that it feels like readers are learning a lesson. There’s a kind of take-it-or-leave-it nonchalance that I quite like.

The story is about a red-haired boy named Liam. He lives in a dreary town without a plant to speak of. No trees, no flowers, nothing but cement and smog. One day Liam happens upon a staircase which leads to the abandoned railroad tracks. What our hero discovers there changes his life. He finds plants. It’s not much – some sad looking grass and a few flowers on their deathbeds, but Liam decides to nurse them back to health. As they get better, the vegetation begins to spread, and soon other folks begin to follow Liam’s lead. After a while the town, once dingy and gray, is transformed.

While Peter did a great job adding me to the story, his acrylic and gouache illustrations really steal the show. The man is a master of perspective, always choosing the right angle to add life to the story. The beating heart of this book is right in the middle. Two wordless two-page spreads show the amazing growth of Liam’s garden. In fact, the illustrations are such that this book would function pretty well were it completely wordless.

While I, Mr. Message, would love to take sole credit for the success of The Curious Garden, more praise should go to Mr. Brown, who created beautiful images, tamed my preachy side, and crafted a lovely story.

Reply
J. Vargo
August 9th, 2010 on 6:03 pm
Review by J. Vargo for The Curious Garden
Rating:
The Curious Garden is one of the books that appears on many “mock Caldecott” short lists. The Caldecott Medal is an award given to the best children’s picture book published the preceeding year. The Curious Garden will be eligible for the 2010 Caldecott.

I love the message of the book–that things that are worn-out and ugly can become beautiful when people care enough to put work into them, like Liam, the star of this story, cares about turning old elevated railroad tracks into gardens. Cities are full of possibilities for re-purposing and renewing places that are no longer functioning. As an urban park planner for 20 years in many industrial towns, there is no shortage of places and no limit to the possibilities, as long as people are willing to dream and make their dreams realities. I think it would be good for our nation for us to become a nation of visionaries and goal-oriented workers again! The book is inspiring, and I hardly ever say that about a book or any other form of media.

The drawback for me is the illustrations. They fail to live up to the inspiring message of the text. The dull tones, the overly-subtle changes between the “before” and “after” images, the utter stiffness of the people (can Liam even bend his elbows and knees?)overwhelms the hope-filled theme.

The illustrations seem to just show continued urban decay sometimes. The buidlings still look rusty and dirty with broken windows, the only change is that no one controls the inevitable weeds that grow out of every crack and crevice. Growing plants on tumbledown buildings does not renew a city or inspire others to “go green.” If anything, the city looks less cared-for and more out of control.

It’s been my experience that when someone actually cares about their old urban neighborhood, whether with a new park, a beautiful garden, repainted houses or whatever, others catch the improvment bug and start to fix up their places, too. They see how dingy their own place looks compared to what it can be. Attitudes change and people are inspired to create order and beauty for its own sake. But in this book, the only thing that seems to change is that there are more plants around. It would have been nice for the illustrations to show people painting, fixing, loving their city.

It’s probably just the style of artwork that makes the illustrations seem dull. The large patches of muted and paled colors don’t spread cheer, inspiration, activity or hope like they could.

Unfortunately, because of that, it becomes another boring children’s book with a message, instead of an inspiring look at possibilities and love.

Reply
Love2Travel
August 9th, 2010 on 6:51 pm
Review by Love2Travel for The Curious Garden
Rating:
I just absolutely love this book. The illustrations are beautiful. Almost real and surreal at the same time.

Well written and simple but with a strong message – community, caring for the environment, growth, spreading the good and passing it forward.

We saw the author and he is just adorable. I love the books even more knowing that this guy wrote them and illustrated them. He is just hilarious and charming and really good with kids…hmmm.. wonder if he has a girlfriend…I digress.

It really is a great book. Good for families and great in classrooms.His other books are also topnotch. Illustrations are what makes them great.

Reply
BookwormLD
August 9th, 2010 on 7:50 pm
Review by BookwormLD for The Curious Garden
Rating:
I saw this book in the Shelf Awareness newsletter and the publisher lists it as being for ages 3-7. This, to me, is in conflict with the listing here on Amazon, which states “Baby-Preschool” and might keep the book from finding its intended audience. Amazon, perhaps this listing needs to be changed?

Reply
Mike In NYC
August 9th, 2010 on 7:51 pm
Review by Mike In NYC for The Garden
Rating:
I saw this film at an IFC screening in NYC that included a Q&A with the director afterward. People who advocate of the rights of the poor to use under-used urban land almost universally love this film. I suspect the director shares their sympathies. What usually goes unnoticed as far as the story is concerned is that the city took private land through eminent domain and then failed to use the land for any of the public purposes for which land seizures are normally reserved. After the passage of several years, the city then sold the land back to the original owner at the price they’d originally paid him. On the surface, this does not seem ‘unfair’. However, in the interim poor immigrants, many of whom were presumably undocumented, began to farm the land. That Hamilton failed to document whether or not these people were undocumented, whether any particular viewer feels this is germane or not, is a minor flaw in the film. Of course, their immigration status would have been a difficult topic to broach with the immigrants themselves and might have changed the filmmaker’s access to the immigrant community, but it might also have served to highlight the differences between the immigrant community and the allegedly corrupt city counselors who were elected by the poor Black residents of the area. Be that as it may, Hamilton does a good job with the documents available to present the complexity of the situation, if only in passing. I spoke to Hamilton after the screening. He’d already sold the few DVDs he had with him for $20 and urged me to call or email him for a copy. I’ve done both, but only get an answering machine or a form email telling me the DVD is available, because of my university affiliation, for $310, even though I have no plans to use the DVD in an educational setting.

Reply
D. E. fenkel
August 9th, 2010 on 8:38 pm
Review by D. E. fenkel for The Garden
Rating:
this doc shows the full spectrum of a nasty fight between crooked city council members, unprincipled community leaders, and hard working immigrant workers making great use of public land.

so damn deserving the academy award nomination it received.

i can’t recommend it enough. it’s the real life The Wire.

Reply
Sussex Pond Pudding
August 9th, 2010 on 9:06 pm
Review by Sussex Pond Pudding for The Garden
Rating:
This is a compelling and sadly unsurprising documentary about a group of Latino farmers in South Central Los Angeles being bullied by the political establishment and forced off land that they have been using for many years. It is a simple story, the likes of which we are all familiar with: back room deals, greed over morality, poor people being abused without recourse, etc. For anyone with a conscience this is an open and shut case of right and wrong. It is also an example of what the Left does right, despite their many political and philosophical flaws, and by extension, an example of what the Right does wrong.

The Left has not completely forsaken its ties to decency. The Left wing establishment has, as is evidenced in this film, but the grassroots core continues to try to do what they believe is the “right thing”. Whether it actually is the “right thing” or not doesn’t concern me here. They believe in a higher ethical system than the one layed out in the law books. Unfortunately, the Right in America has become little more than a defender of the these laws without any thought as to whether they are ethical or not. The Right in America has been hijacked by Big Business and Israel and turned into a Capitalist propaganda machine. When a group of poor subsistence farmers can be run off their land for no reason whatsoever (to this day the land has been left vacant by Ralph Horowitz, the owner) and no one from the Right comments or cares or shows up to march with them can we blame the poor for flying the Che flag? And when the singer of Rage Against The Machine makes a comment about how this would not happen in “Anglo” neighborhoods and no one is there to tell him that Jews are not “Anglos” can we blame them for distrusting and resenting white people? The Right needs to realize that Republicans, Israel and Big Business are not on our side. We need to stop worrying about Border Patrols and taxes and start worrying about ethics and moral obligation and distancing ourselves from the things that, rightly, shed us in a negative light. It is a shame that not one of the members of any of the many Southern Californian “extreme” right groups was there fighting alongside those farmers against Mr. Horowitz and the LA City Council.

Reply
Balaji Rajam
August 9th, 2010 on 9:08 pm
Review by Balaji Rajam for The Garden
Rating:
It was George Orwell who once said “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”. For the most part, I believe, The Garden does that. A heartbreaking true story of how the largest urban form in America was razed to the ground by corrupt politicians and an over zealous land owner.

More than the story of a farm, it is a commentary on the human condition and the desire to live one’s life with dignity. These immigrant workers poured their blood and sweat and turned a 16 acre wasteland into a lush farm land. By stripping them of their land and livelihood through backroom deals, the politicians are destroying the America where it was once possible for the little guy to succeed

Reply
Roland E. Zwick
August 9th, 2010 on 10:08 pm
Review by Roland E. Zwick for The Garden
Rating:
***1/2

After the riots of 1992, the city of Los Angeles set aside fourteen acres of land not far from the downtown area to be used as a community produce garden, the largest such parcel in the United States. In 2003, the owner of the property decided to sell the land to make way for a storage facility and soccer field, resulting in a tremendous loss for the farmers who had invested so much of their time and lives working there. The documentary “The Garden,” directed by Scott Hamilton Kennedy, chronicles the fight the workers waged against the powers-that-be to preserve the place that had come to mean so much to them.

The issue eventually became a cause celebre for politicians and celebrities alike, with people like Dennis Kucinich, Darryl Hannah, Joan Baez and Willie Nelson getting in on the action. But the true heroes of “The Garden” are the ordinary men and women who took on the system and proved that even if you can’t always beat City Hall, it would be a betrayal of the human spirit not to at least give it a try. This is a heartrending yet inspiring film – if a trifle rough around the edges – marked by the bitterness of outward defeat and the triumph of a community rising up and making its voice heard. The “villains” may be pretty clear-cut in this case – lip-service politicians, shady dealers and a vindictive landowner – but then so too are the heroes. “The Garden” is their story.

Reply