Everything Grows in Jiddo’s Garden

A grandfather’s garden roots a child’s sense of cultural heritage in a quietly affirming rhyming family story from Matari and Ghanameh. As the young narrator examines a family photo album, Mama explains that the child has “two homes, one here, one far away,/ in a place called Palestine.” When the youth longs for the one they’ve never seen, they head to Jiddo’s garden, which offers up growing things, including the figs that represent Jiddo’s “favorite taste of home.” Asked how he learned to care for the plot, Jiddo describes his baba’s garden in Palestine, recounts how “our family had to flee,” and explains that while he hopes to return one day, “for now, I tend the garden.” Even light bathes the blues, golds, greens, and reds of the cartooned illustrations, dotted with images of poppies and watermelon slices, in this tender, yearning work about how the home in Jiddo’s heart “makes everything grow.” An author’s note and glossary conclude. Ages 3–8. (Aug.)