When reviewing children’s books, particularly as I tend to review those aimed at first readers, and earlier, I can get a little clouded and perhaps, occasionally, lose sight of the fact that I am not the intended audience for these books.

The introduction of a child, to either read the book themselves, or indeed, for me to read to, is most definitely necessary in some cases.  It is all well and good me liking, and praising a book, but if it is the opposite for the actual intended audience, then, well, it is of little worth.

Luckily, for readers of my reviews, yet rather annoyingly for folks in my life, I do not find it difficult to slip into the toddler mindset, the odd prompt being all I need to send me into my own little junior world of my own.

Picking up George and Flora’s Secret Garden for the first time however, I was obviously in grown up, and hyper critical mode, not a state that I like to be in for too long.

I found the book, while a pleasure to look at, to be a little cluttered, and if anything having too much information in it, trying to give a lot of detail, and dovetail stories together, that really did not work for me.

The premise of the book, written by Jo Elworthy, who is also in charge of the Eden Project in Cornwall, is effectively about children growing their own food.

George and Flora, the book’s main characters, are also awaiting the arrival of another sibling, and there is some linkage between waiting for a child to arrive, and for waiting for things to grow.

I really like the story in the book, as does my five-year-old son, but it took his involvement for me to realise this.

The layout of the book is such, that the story and main illustrations occupy the left page, and most of the right, with a column for information about growing things, and a footnote of where we are with the pregnancy.

This means, that if you try to read all this information concurrently, as I did in the outset, then it can be content rich, and confusing.  But when reading the story in isolation, something I automatically did when I had my son on my lap – my mini-eureka moment with this book – it is most enjoyable, and then the columns become easy to refer to prompts, after the whole story has concluded, or in isolation themselves.

We have our own vegetable patch, but the book has actually reminded me, and prompted me, to get some pumpkin seeds, as that is something we didn’t grow last season.

Illustrations within the book, the handy work of Ley Honor Roberts, are a wonderful mix of drawings, and real photo images.   Demonstrated well on the books cover, the image included within this blog post.

The book is published by Eden Project Books, which itself is an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, and is available from Rbooks.

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