New Arrivals for Your Winter Enjoyment

On Meadowview Street by Henry Cole
The front lawn of Caroline's new home is like all the others in her cookie-cutter subdivision-it's a simple, sterile patch of green that falls far short of the "Meadowview" that her street name promises. But after she saves the yard's single wildflower from her father's lawnmower, Caroline is inspired to turn her lawn into a tiny nature preserve...an idyllic habitat begins to take shape-one that inspires their neighbors.

As a writer, Cole is almost reportorial in tone; he wisely chooses not to limit the depth of his heroine's emotional landscape, which could have turned his book into a sappy "kids-can-do-anything" story. But the growing lushness of the yard-beautifully portrayed in meticulously detailed, velvety acrylics-clues readers into Caroline's burgeoning sense of belonging and accomplishment. It's a lovely parable of suburban life. Ages 4-8 Publishers Weekly (May 28, 2007)

Butterfly Park – by Elly MacKay

A child newly arrived from the country is dismayed to discover that the pocket park next to her urban building is, despite its name, lacking butterflies. What to do? Even the butterflies that she, with help from neighboring children, captures and brings to the sterile-looking park flutter away immediately...except for one, which leads her and a growing group of city residents through the streets to a small patch of flowers. Of course! The next day everyone shows up at the park with "boots and gnomes and wagons"--and in time, as revealed in a climactic double gatefold bedizened with blooms as well as winged and human visitors, the butterflies come.

Centered on the park's elaborate art nouveau gateway, Mac-Kay's lyrical paper collage and diorama constructs feature layered details and out-of-focus backgrounds for a sense of depth. Brightly patterned butterflies, delicate flowers, and human figures pose like gracefully off-balance dancers. As the atmosphere is, overall, ethereal (underscored by occasional close-ups of the girl's elfin features and abstracted gaze), this is more a visually poetic tale about bringing nature to the city than a practical blueprint for creating a crowd-sourced flower garden. Still, like Kevin Henkes' My Garden (2010), it may spur young readers to green dreams of their own…
Kirkus Reviews (March 15, 2015)

The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nations Largest Home  – by Denise Keirnan

From the Gilded Age to the present, Kiernan (The Girls of Atomic City, 2013) traces the history of Biltmore, the estate of George Vanderbilt in what was then the sleepy town of Asheville, North Carolina. At a leisurely pace, Kiernan follows the lives of both Vanderbilt fortune heir George and his future wife, Edith Stuyvesant Dresser, who, after George’s death in 1914 from a pulmonary embolism, dealt with Biltmore through WWI and the Depression. Kiernan lavishes attention not
only on the house, made up of 250 rooms and covering four acres, but also on the forestry school designed to revive the over-logged landscape, the Arts and Crafts movement that grew up in Asheville under Edith’s influence, and the many visitors to the estate, including Edith Wharton and Henry James. The story of the house, which now survives on the money of tourists, may not be suspenseful, but the many diverting detours Kiernan takes make the book enticing for even those who will never set foot on Biltmore grounds.