The Summer My Father Was Ten - Hardcover

Pat Brisson is the author of Benny's Pennies, the Kate books, Hot Fudge Hero, and Wanda's Roses, an American Booksellers "Pick of the Lists." She lives in Phillipsburg, New Jersey.

Andrea Shine is the illustrator of Big Band Sound and The Faraway Drawer, both by Harriett Diller. She lives in Southampton.

Ages 4^-8. Growing a garden is fact and metaphor in this profoundly moving cross-generational story with a neighborhood drama that children will relate to and exquisite watercolors that celebrate renewal and connection. A young girl tells how every year she and her father plant a garden together, and every year he tells her the story of the summer he was 10 when he led his mates in vandalizing the garden of his lonely, old Italian neighbor, Mr. Bellavista ("Spaghetti Man" the kids call him). The damage isn't deliberate; their baseball lands in the plants, and suddenly the boys are having a glorious time splattering tomatoes and peppers and tearing things up. Afterwards, Mr. Bellavista says only one word, "Why?" Next year, he doesn't plant anything. The guilt-stricken boy apologizes, and together, he and Mr. Bellavista clear, dig, plant, and grow things. Until he dies, the solitary immigrant is friends with the boy's small family. No messages are spelled out. As in Shine's illustrations for Diller's Big Band Sound (1997), the large double-page spreads of people and neighborhood burst with light and movement. The personal narrative voice, the heartfelt characters, and the daily gardening work--weeding, watering, watching--are celebrated in the gorgeously detailed pictures that show how a garden transforms a vacant lot. Hazel Rochman