TINY GARDEN

Good things come in small packages.

Andrew, a young boy who presents East Asian, finds the neighborhood gardens outsize: “Too big. Too tall. Too much.” So he digs a rectangular plot about the length of his trowel. When a neighbor criticizes it as “far too small,” Andrew is polite but firm: “This will be a tiny garden.” He adds seeds, “tucking them in with soft pats.” Time and water produce green sprigs and colorful blooms: “a tiny, perfect jewel box of a garden.” The green-booted passer-by, judging in terms of human utility, asks rudely, “What is the point? You can’t walk in it. You can’t sit in it. You can barely see it!” Andrew is unruffled, and soon a moth flying by can’t “believe her compound eyes,” finding rest and relief there. A tiny earthworm, hummingbird, and ladybug find the garden “just right”; Andrew dubs them “small friends.” The neighbor, impervious to beauty or blind to scale, still doesn’t see the point, but Andrew calmly replies, “That’s okay…I do.” Underwood’s sweet story valorizes “little things” and the true gardener’s intoxication with the earth. Chow’s illustrations are brilliant. First dominated by green and brown, with pops of red and blue, her richly saturated watercolors transition to carmine, teal, emerald, and sapphire once the little garden is thriving, building to a final, gloriously vibrant spread.

A tiny delight that celebrates patience, Zen-like focus, and appreciation for the small things.