Diana's White House Garden
by Elisa Carbone, Illustrated by Jen Hill
Published by: Viking Books for Young Readers
ISBN-10: 0670016497
Age Range: 5-8 years
$13.49 on Amazon
A new arrival on your bookstore or library's bookshelves is the new book Diana's White House Garden by Elisa Carbone that tells the story of young 10 year old Diana Hopkins who lived at the White House during Roosevelt's presidency and helped create a gardening movement during WWII throughout the U.S. Diana was the daughter of President Roosevelt's chief advisor Harry Hopkins and worked on the first "Victory Garden" at the White House. The garden was an example to show how the country needed to help the war effort by planting their own food. The reason being that many fresh vegetables were being shipped to soldiers and the civilians at home also needed food also to survive. In real life, Diana' and the White House Victory Garden became a news sensation and gave people of the U.S. motivation to start their own gardens in their backyard and neighborhood.
I love that this picture book is inspired by the true story and we get to see her in the book doing normal kid things and playing pranks. But then in the time of national crisis, she finds her passion with the garden – working with Eleanor Roosevelt to plant seeds, see her vegetables grow and culminating with a feast from the garden's pickings. Kids will really relate to Diana, I know Chloe does and she laughed at all the little pranks Diana did around the White House. It's a great historical story to share with kids to show that kids can make a difference, no matter how small or big.
The illustrations by Jen Hill are so beautiful. She mentions in the end of the book how she spent time researching the time and Roosevelt era.
Here are some stills from the book:
Pick up a copy of Diana's White House Garden on Amazon.com.
Review book provided by Penguin Books
