The Children’s Book Review
Published: May 29, 2009
Hopefully you had the opportunity to read my review of Mortimer’s First Garden by Karma Wilson. Mortimer’s tale inspired me to do a little gardening with my 3-year-old — we planted some sunflower seeds.
At the time of my review, I included this excerpt from the book not realizing that these words would actually save our little blooming sunflowers:
In the morning Mortimer woke up to…
pitter, patter, pat, pat.
“Rain!” groaned Mortimer. Out in his garden he found…
brown, soggy dirt.
Mortimer stomped his paw. “Nothing! I knew the miracle wouldn’t happen.”
“I’m going to dig my seed back up and eat it!” Mortimer said. But then he stopped. “Maybe some miracles need more time.”
He looked up at the sky, and down to his seed. “Please grow and turn green,” he said.
Well, almost two months had gone past and we had seen no sign of anything green. We told ourselves maybe some miracles need more time. But how much more time? The instructions said we would see seedlings in around 10 days. So … we dug our seeds back up. To our amazement our seedlings were growing, they were just growing in the wrong direction. They had turned themselves upside down. We gently straightened them, packed the soil back around them, and gave them plenty of water for a couple of days. Now they are healthy and growing UP!