I Heard It from Alice Zucchini: Poems About the Garden

by Juanita Havill (Text), Juanita Havill, Christine Davenier (Illustrations)

From the still chill of a winter night to the ra-ta-ta, ra-ta-ta, ra-ta-ta-too of a lively vegetable stew, these twenty whimsical poems celebrate the joys of a garden from start to finish. A tour de force of imagination, I Heard It from Alice Zucchini invites you to join in the Pea Pod Chant, wander through the Rhubarb Forest, dance with the Dainty Doily Dill Weed, gossip with Alice Zucchini, and hold your breath on the pumpkin's enchanted evening. Illustrated with magical paintings, here is a book that will delight gardeners of all ages.

Genres: Poetry, Picture Books, Childrens, Juvenile

32 pages, Hardcover

First published February 23, 2006

About the author

Juanita Havill is the author of more than thirty books for children, including I Heard It from Alice Zucchini, a collection of poems about the garden; Jamaica's Find, a Reading Rainbow Review Book, IRA-CBC Children's Choice, and the Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Award); Jamaica Tag-Along (an American Bookseller Pick of the Lists); and Eyes Like Willy's (Crown-Lamplighter honor book). She lives and gardens in Arizona and writes and teaches writing.

For more information, please see http://www.answers.com/topic/juanita-...

Reviews

[Kaileigh Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cute book that shows the life of one seed and how it changes over the seasons as other plants grow as well. Each poem is a different part of it growing. It's a big build up to making a vegetable stew at the end of the book. Mostly AABB rhyme schemes but also some free verse. I think this would be a great book to use if you're talking about the seasons with your students.

[Cheryl A. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am charmed by the presentation, design, art. I love some of the poems, esp. "Sweet Cicely and the Bee." But most poems personify the vegetables, and if I'd read this as a child I would have been awfully conflicted about eating them.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is really cute. It is about the journey from the garden into the vegetable stew. It is compressed of poems and chants. This would be a really good book to read aloud under a doc cam because the class can read it together. I love how this book gives a differet view of poetry.

[Kayla Spires · Rating 3 out of 5]

A set of poems that goes through the seasons within a garden setting from a cute perspective of various growing plants. The poetic rhythm guides the reader through transitions and takes them on a journey of personified plants. The colors really go long with the season and mood of the time. It is cute to see different aspects of a garden in a new way like seeing how a seed may feel or a scarecrow.

[Cariegreer · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book of poems follows vegetables growing in the garden. It begins with the seeds talking about what they are going to be when they grow up; followed by the instructions of how to plant. The cutest poem is about the monster in the garden which is the scarecrow. subsequent poems are aobut the vegetables, a summer storm, July, an angry pumpkin, and ending with a vegetable stew. The illustrations have a little fairy in each setting so it has a fairy tale feel to it. The poems are decent; nothing really strikes me as spectacular.

[N · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great title. I really liked the organization of the poems, they flowed from late winter into the planting season, through summer, and back to the first snow.

The poems themselves however weren't that strong. I wasn't really taken by any of them.

[Lori Gravley · Rating 4 out of 5]

20 poems and a table of contents. 2006 Chronicle "whimisical poems celebrate the garden from start to finish." Illustrations feature fairies. Vegetables are personified and speak poems from the voices of corn and cauliflower.

[Paul Hankins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely poems about gardening and growing vegetables!

[Janet Squires · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of twenty seasonal poems gives a smart nod to the science of growing things in some of the works and relishes whimsy in others.

[Kiah Roberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

....younger students who may appreciate the nursery rhyme style of the text.

[Laura Salas]

Favorite poem: Carrots (reminds me of RKD's voice)