ISBN: 9780316015479
With International Earth Day being on 22 April 2019, we celebrated at our Book Club Hour at Thorntree Preparatory School today by reading a book called The Curious Garden, written and illustrated by Peter Brown.
The Curious Garden is based on real events, inspired by The High Line, which is a railroad built, but deserted long ago, and was transformed into a beautiful public park of over 2km long in Manhattan, New York!
We started off with a discussion about whether nature can after all be found in big cities, or whether cities are just places with paved streets and tall, shiny buildings. The Curious Garden then introduced the High Line in a fun way, and the children’s logic and conversational skills were put to the test when they had to debate whether they would’ve wanted the High Line’s tracks removed and why, and how to communicate it to the Mayor.
They then learned about the current developments and future plans for the High Line, i.e. The Spur, the last remaining section of the High Line being transformed into a public gathering place, as well as The Plinth, a large open space that will be utilized to display new, monumental works of public art, as the focus point of The Spur. They also learned about “Brick House”, a 5m-tall bronze bust artwork of a black woman with a torso in the forms of a skirt and a clay house, by Simone Leigh as the first artwork to be displayed at the Plinth.
The discussion continued into something the main character of the story, Liam, as well as the developers of the High Line have in common: persistence. This is also our first Habit of Mind, and it means to persevere in task through to completion; remaining focused, looking for ways to reach our goal when stuck; not giving up!
The children had to discuss what persistence would look like in the classroom, at extracurricular events, in the car or bus on the way home or to school, and other personal situations they might find themselves in. They also learned how to get rid of those persistent negative thoughts like “I can’t do this” or “it’s just too hard”.
Their attention was also brought to the fact that Liam’s persistence didn’t only affect his own growth or the growth of the plants, but it impacted the whole city and its inhabitants. The efforts of one small person can help change the world!
The kids each received a bookmark containing a Chinese proverb. It was nice to see a student’s version of it displayed later in class!
Get some resources from primarygraffiti, and listen to a reading of The Curious Garden by Peter Brown:
