The Invisible Garden, written by Valerie Picard and illustrated by Marianne Ferrer. Translated from French by Sophie B. Watson. Orca Book Publishers. 2019. $19.95 ages 4 and up

"In The

Invisible Garden,

Everything

Is

Possible"

It's Grandma's birthday. Arianne and her family leave the bustle of their city home to travel a long way into the countryside, before finding themselves at her grandmother's house in the woods. After greeting her and wishing her a happy day, Arianne is surrounded by the chatter of the adults present and finds herself with little to interest her. She is happy when someone suggests a visit to the garden.

There, tired from the long journey, she lies down. Not spending much time outside in the city, this is a new experience and gives her a new perspective on the garden's inhabitants. Whether she falls asleep and dreams, or lets her imagination run wild, will depend on the child reader's perspective. However it happens, the visit to the garden becomes a fanciful adventure that sees her shrink to a size where she can run with the locusts, float on a dandelion seed, follow a thrown pebble into the ocean depths where a dinosaur-like being emerges from the water to carry the little girl into the sky and capture a star in her net. The star enchants her, bringing the action back to the garden where her father finds lying on the ground in the darkness. What just happened?

The text is minimal and leaves Marianne Ferrer's artwork to charm readers with ever changing vistas. The warmth of the garden's browns and greens gives way to the deep blues of the ocean, then the darkness of the night sky. Being tiny is often a wish for little ones ... to see the world from a very different perspective than is usual for them. Spending time in nature is given a real boost when children share such stories. Imaginative and full of adventure and action, this is a book to be enjoyed by many.

One of the things I find so wonderful about books with minimal words is the power it gives children for interpretation. They are able to bring their thoughts, their own style and their past experiences with books and language to help them tell their own stories. How empowering is that?