40 months - Peter Reynolds always has beautifully simple story telling and illustrations with an amazing complexity to the story underneath. I think it lost just a little something with it's dedication, it really didn't need to have a famous connection to be a wonderful and meaningful story. ( )

Reading this as an adult, a few things about this story made me a bit skeptical. I'm willing to accept that a woman travels the world in a teapot (sure, why not?) collecting seeds from everywhere she goes (cool idea). When she pulls up at a dock and finds an abandoned city plot that she just takes over for her garden/teapot house, though, I wondered about city zoning. Land might be abandoned or unused, but it's not usually free to squatters/crazy bird ladies (maybe in Detroit?). Next, Rose plants her seeds and waits through all four seasons, but nothing grows. (And she doesn't die of exposure.) But then neighborhood kids start lining up to bring her paper flowers, which she plants in the ground. (One: they'd fall apart in the first rain. Two: unfortunately, it's the rare child who is kind to the strange woman. Most of them are more likely to peg her for a witch and possibly throw rocks.) In among the paper flowers, Rose soon notices REAL flowers growing, from the seeds she planted over a year ago. And Rose lived happily ever after in her teapot surrounded by flowers in a vacant city lot, where children happily play, read, draw, and garden.

Probably these criticisms are ridiculous, but this is what I thought the first time I read the book. On the other hand, the illustrations are really nice, gentle and colorful and humorous; I especially enjoyed finding Rose's pet bird (familiar?) in each picture (although the bird had the good sense to fly south for the winter, apparently). And the idea of a community garden is a lovely one; I'm all for green spaces in cities. ( )