QUIET IN THE GARDEN
by Aliki and illustrated by Aliki
A sandal-shod child holds still in the garden, watching its various denizens help themselves to its bounty. A robin eats some berries, a snail munches some leaves and so on. Even as the child’s observations carry this simple narrative along, the animals provide a parallel dialogue in a smaller font: “Why did you do that?” demands a butterfly of the snail, who replies, “It’s what I do when I’m hungry.” Occasional humor enlivens this subplot, which threatens tedium with its necessarily repetitive pattern. Aliki’s eye for the child-appealing detail is as keen as ever—her protagonist sports a Band-aid on the left elbow—and her garden flora and fauna vary only in subject, not in beauty (though sticklers will wonder that the daffodils and the tomatoes seem to be in season at the same time). (Picture book. 3-5)