Secrets of the Garden: Food Chains and the Food Web in Our Backyard Paperback – Picture Book, April 8, 2014

The setup of the book is that a small child hides in the bushes and observes what is happening in the garden: bugs eat plants, spider eats bugs, bird eats spider, cat eats bird. Many of the pictures are from the ground level perspective. At the end there is a food web illustration showing the complexity of the garden ecosystem. My son particularly liked the last page which showed an aerial-type view of the garden. The garden is divided into a section for each member of the family to grow their favorite food, and that appealed to him a lot.

This is a great book to introduce children to gardening. It has fun pictures, a good story line and informative facts about gardening from planting to harvesting, including pages about composting, worms helping garden, etc. My 3 year old grandson never tires of having this read to him. I also shared it with 2nd grade teachers who used it with their science unit on plants and plan to purchase it.

This is a good garden food chain story--great to use with young children to explain the inter-relationships of the life web.

My grand daughter who loves to garden, she is especially good at watering, with her dad really enjoyed this book

I purchased this book to donate to our local children's storybook garden library, it has been a favorite with the children.

The wonder of discovery - right outside the back door! I loved it!

Illustrated nicely but the type is less than 6 point type (l’d guess about 4) and therefore it is impossible to read in landscape mode on my oversized phone. There’s a way to enlarge the type— up to 6 point. (The print on this review from my phone is larger than the book copy, about 8 point.)Enlarging the copy is difficult to do. And not a help.Sadly, the illustrations will not enlarge using touch. My recommendation: don’t buy.

Mom and Dad gathered their family around them and went outside to check for the signs of spring. Alice smiled and she held some daffodils in her hand and her brother, Pete, looked toward the robin sitting on her perch in a tree. Daisy and Maisy, their two chickens, were wandering in the yard. It was getting warmer and soon it would be "time to plant the garden." Dad prepared the soil and the children began to plant lettuce, carrots, peas, and beets. Would they plant some catnip for their cat, Honey?Daisy and Maisy knew all about composting and that "old leaves and vegetable scraps--along with a little poop from [their] coop" were good for the plants. Day after day, Alice and Pete watched the soil to see if any of their seeds had sprouted. Soon the sprouts were seen and Pete excitedly called for his sister to come see them. Each one of the sprouts looked different. Soon they became seedlings and the garden was on its way. Mom began to plant her potted seedlings and she put "potatoes the size of marbles in the ground." Everything in the garden was connected to nature and they would soon learn why.This book is a marvelous way for children to learn about nature and food chains. Set up in a picture book format, this tale is fun to follow and an easy way to learn about the wonders of nature. The two chickens, Daisy and Maisy, are a dynamic, comical duo who lecture about the garden and how it connects to the food chain and food wed. For example, they have a chart and point out a variety of herbivores, carnivores, and tell us why they are omnivores. The whimsical, charming artwork is detailed and meshes well with the tale. I especially liked the panel of worms cultivating the soil. The maze-like tunnels have text and the reader needs to turn the book this way and that to read it. This is an amazing garden learning experience that would be a perfect addition to any homeschool or classroom shelves you might want to add to your list!