Joy takes root

Making her picture book debut, Wallace centers a Black-presenting family's time gardening together as a means of looking forward and back. "The most important thing to remember," Grammy tells young Joy as they together tour Grammy's expansive South Carolina garden, "is that plants are our friends and our family." Pointing out all of the flora she cultivates, Grammy next offers up information about herbs' medicinal properties and teaches Joy how to plant seeds of her own. A moving series of spreads observes Grammy paying homage to the family's ancestors--"the ways they took care of this same soil" and the way their love is ready to be passed on--before inviting Joy to both "put our intention into the soil" and consider how "each drop of water holds the memories of all the water before it." Textural hand-drawn and digital illustrations by Corrin (Layla's Happiness) highlight the garden in colorful detail, showing fruitful connections via images of a bumble bee perched on a squash blossom and of Joy, seated on the globe, resting her hand on the earth. It's a reap-what-you-sow telling that considers what's been given and what's yet to come. Ages 4--8. Author's agent: Wendi Gu, Sanford J. Greenburger Assoc. Illustrator's agent: Nicole Geiger, Full Circle Literary. (June)

When Joy visits Grammy in South Carolina, she acquires much more than a bag of seeds. From Grammy, Joy learns that some plants can be powerful medicines and that it's important to pause before planting to remember the ancestors who worked the same soil before you. Grammy also insists that the Earth has a heartbeat just like humans, although "listening takes practice." Grammy's okra plants stand taller than she is--a testament to her gardening passion and persistence. She teaches Joy to hold the soil in her hands and breathe her intentions into it to plant her hopes along with the seeds. Joy delights in the variety of shapes, sizes, and colors of the seeds they plant, and when it's time for her to go home, Grammy gives her a bag of seeds of her own. Joy feels doubtful that she can cultivate a garden as successfully as her grandmother, but Grammy has taught her well. This contemplative portrayal of a Black grandmother and granddaughter bonding over their mutual love of gardening and the outdoors is both rare and welcome. In Corrin's expansive and colorful illustrations, the heavy use of the color green, including on Grammy's gardening apron, emphasizes the characters' love of nature and how nature embraces them, too. (This book was reviewed digitally.) A quiet, thoughtful tale that promotes mindfulness, intentionality, gratitude, and connection. (Picture book. 4-7) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.