Linnea's Windowsill Garden

Bjork, Christina and Lena Anderson. 1978. Linnea’s Windowsill Garden. Stockholm: R&S Books.

Plot Summary

Linnea is not only the name of a flower, but also the name of Bjork and Anderson’s green-thumbed main character. In Linnea’s Windowsill Garden we learn all of the creative ways that an “asphalt flower” can grow plants in a city apartment. This fantastic adventure follows approximately 10 year old Linnea, a young girl who grows plants from simple kitchen ingredients (citrus seeds, split peas, carrot tops), using basic house items (newspaper, bottles, glass jars and baskets) and amateur horticulturist techniques. Linnea gets her ideas from a retired gardener friend, Mr. Bloom, who wears a vest and slippers, and reads the paper while Linnea sits on his couch in her apron with bare feet up.

Critical Analysis

The authors use Linnea as an instrument for introducing creative ways a young city kid can garden. They present concepts in horticulture science (germinating seeds, as well as technical terms like stamen and stigmas), introduce vegetable & fruit-from-plant connections, and environmental science basics of solar energy, carbon dioxide and chlorophyll processes. The illustrations and conversations between the two characters provide an accessible format delighting readers age 6 to 60. This is one of the reasons why I first picked this book at a used book store nearly ten years ago. I gave me clever ideas on how to grow kitchen plants from the food I already had in my fruit baskets. I learned a recipe for garden-cress cheese, how to grow a mini-terrarium, how to identify basic problems and treatments and when to replant my root-bound spider plants.

Aside from a picture of the linnea flower Swedish stamp from 1978, the authors make no mention of their country of origin or city where Linnea’s garden grows. Mr. Bloom and Linnea appear to have a teacher/student as well as neighbor/friend relationship as Linnea learns about different houseplant bugs and ways to get rid of them from the older friend.

Although the pencil drawings in black, white and green appear childlike, the page layout is more like a how-to pamphlet or gardening gazette than a children’s picture book. This book will not only appeal to young girls, but others as well because of the gardener Mr. Bloom’s gender and age. It also promotes, if subtly, having friendships with those of different generations that can teach and share common interests.

Review Excerpts

"For all her enthusiasm, Linnea is wise enough to have realistic expectationsflowers don't always bloom by the book, and every now and then there may be setbacks. But her zeal is infectious; readers will be looking around the house for seeds they can press into soil or coax into germination." - Publishers Weekly

"This is fun! Bjork offers a lively, chatty romp through indoor gardening with a grinning Linnea as guide, and a grandfatherly Mr. Bloom offering steady advice when needed." - School Library Journal

Connections

This book is a fantastic contributor to a classroom gardening lesson. Children can learn about community gardens, simple plant structures, and relationships with food and gardening friends in these other two books for the same age:

Stewart, Sarah. 1997. The Gardener. New York : Farrar Straus Giroux

Fleischman, Paul. 1997. Seedfolks. New York : HarperCollins.