![]() ![]() The gardens in “Tokyo Digs a Garden,” written by Jon-Erik Lappano, are about abandoning control, not exercising it. The townspeople were never the same, says the text, and neither was William. Then, in a riveting sequence of spreads, a green vista of sculpted animals - giraffe, emu, rhinoceros - turns autumn-colored and finally reverts to plain, bare-branched trees. In a marathon night of climbing and clipping, a park becomes a menagerie of giant, leafy creatures.Īs the depressed town turns celebratory, illustrations that started out monochrome go full-color. Young William, who lives in an orphanage but is apparently free to come and go, happens one evening upon the Night Gardener, a mysterious old man with a walrus mustache who (because this is William’s book, or his fantasy) engages the boy as apprentice. ![]() The vivid animal figures spark delight in this grim place. Every morning the townspeople discover that another large tree has been reshaped into magnificent topiary. So it is in “The Night Gardener,” a debut written and illustrated by the brothers Terry and Eric Fan, set in a gray town where green things are happening. As three new picture books with dramatically varied styles of illustration show, a garden is an idea that can be approached from starkly different directions.Ī garden can be art: sculpture made from greenery. ![]() Even if you don’t, thinking about gardens - renewal, growth, wildness, creativity - has its own reward. It’s time to be thinking about your garden, if you have one. ![]()
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