The Invisible Garden

PreS-Gr 2–A young girl named Arianne and her family travel from the city to the country to celebrate her grandmother’s birthday. After the long journey, Arianne ventures outside to explore her grandmother’s garden. The child at first is bored and unsure of what to do. As she reclines in the soft garden bed, she soon notices a pebble, and then a grasshopper. Before she knows it, she is flying away on a dandelion seed among the grasshoppers and butterflies over the mountains and far away. Within this new secret garden, Arianne swims with a school of fish, races with locusts, rides dinosaurs, and even reaches up to touch the stars. Whether Arianne’s adventures are a dream or a reality seems to matter less and less as the story unfolds. Along the way, she discovers the freedom of her imagination and all of the places it can take her. Picard’s hand lettered text is minimal, which allows Ferrer’s whimsical and inspired illustrations to tell the story.