The circulating children’s collection at the LuEsther T. Mertz Library has titles that support the creative imaginations of our young readers! The fantastical illustrations and lyrical narratives offered in many of our books invite readers to experience a world beyond the surface all while digging deep to learn about the environment around them. The titles featured below are new to our shelves and are perfect examples of fun and educational reads. We hope to see you in the library soon!
In another installment of the You Wouldn’t Want to series, You Wouldn’t Want to Live Without Dirt provides insight on dirt with the familiar elements the other titles in this series offer. Weather you use dirt or soil, this book encourages all readers to view it from every angle. The interactive You Can Do It boxes sprinkled throughout the book encourage readers to explore the components of soil by conducting hands-on experiments. The book answers essential questions like “What is dirt?” and challenges the reader to consider the future of soil. The narrative offers information and new vocabulary throughout. You will not be able to turn a page without learning something new about dirt. Like its sister titles, You Wouldn’t Want To Live Without Dirt is a wonderful read for children being introduced to the topic or those who are starting an elementary grade science project.
Esther Jackson is the Public Services Librarian at NYBG’s LuEsther T. Mertz Library where she manages Reference and Circulation services and oversees the Plant Information Office. She spends much of her time assisting researchers, providing instruction related to library resources, and collaborating with NYBG staff on various projects related to Garden initiatives and events.
This week we dive into a few books detailing the rich history of botanical spirits, and the ways in which we’ve called on the garden to supply us with our favorite tipples.
The Drunken Botanist: The Plants That Create the World’s Great Drinks by Amy Stewart is a treat from start to finish. Drunken Botanist follows Wicked Plants and Wicked Bugs, two excellent books about organisms that can be dangerous to humans. (Read my review of Wicked Plants here.) Stewart is a talented writer, a careful historian, an excellent amateur botanist, and a skilled bartender. Drunken Botanist follows the format of her earlier books, with Stewart selecting different plants and offering readers narratives about their nativity and the history of their usage by humans—specifically how and when they were used to make alcoholic drinks. Sake, scotch, rum, tequila, bourbon, and their plant parents are just a few of the drinks that are featured. Stewart writes, “It would be impossible to describe every plant that has ever flavored an alcoholic beverage. I am certain at this very moment, a craft distiller in Brooklyn is plucking a weed from a crack in the sidewalk and wondering if it would make a good flavoring for a new line of bitters.” Before plucking sidewalk weeds, craft distiller and home bartenders alike would do well to look to Drunken Botanist for inspiration, “stirring” stories, and an infectious excitement about plants that is one of Stewart’s enduring trademarks.
Esther Jackson is the Public Services Librarian at NYBG’s LuEsther T. Mertz Library where she manages Reference and Circulation services and oversees the Plant Information Office. She spends much of her time assisting researchers, providing instruction related to library resources, and collaborating with NYBG staff on various projects related to Garden initiatives and events.
Glorious Shade from Jenny Rose Carey and Timber Press is a lovely meditation on shade gardening. Carey, the senior director at the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society’s Meadowbrook Farm, is a talented writer and photographer, and she frames her book as a conversation about shade gardening. After an introduction detailing different kinds of shade, the narrative ambles through different topics related to shade gardening, culminating in an extensive and beautifully photographed plant palette. Chapter titles include “Shades of Shade: Observing Shifting Patterns in Your Garden,” “The Gardener’s Calendar: Seasonal Changes in the Shade Garden,” “Down and Dirty: The Intertwined, Underground World of Soil and Roots,” “Planting for Success: Techniques and Maintenance,” “Designing in the Shadows: Bright Ideas of Shady Spaces,” and “The Plant Palette: Choosing Plants for Your Shade Garden.”
Carey touches on a variety of topics, and the more unique parts of her book relate to shade plants with specific seasonal interest, suggestions of appropriate under-plantings for specific trees, and, of course, her wonderful plant palette. In terms of practical advice about garden installation and design, the book is a bit too general for either a beginner or an expert. However, in all, Glorious Shade is an excellent reference for gardeners working with shaded areas who are looking for inspiration in terms of garden design and new plants to trial. For those who simply love beautiful garden books, Glorious Shade is also appropriate, as Carey’s photographs are lovely and the book’s visual design is excellent.
Esther Jackson is the Public Services Librarian at NYBG’s LuEsther T. Mertz Library where she manages Reference and Circulation services and oversees the Plant Information Office. She spends much of her time assisting researchers, providing instruction related to library resources, and collaborating with NYBG staff on various projects related to Garden initiatives and events.
Botanical Art from the Golden Age of Scientific Discovery was one of my Top 10 Popular Science Books of 2016. As I wrote in my earlier review, author Anna Laurent has curated an exquisite collection of historic botanical art. “More than an archive of illustrations and inquiry, this book documents an extraordinary convergence of disciplines that flourished in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,” she writes. “Europe was enjoying a golden age of scientific discovery; naturalists were exploring the globe and there was a clamoring for knowledge of the natural world.”
The art in this book comes specifically from botanical wall charts. These charts were created as teaching tools during the 19th and 20th centuries. Produced by professors, biologists, illustrators, writers, and botanists, wall charts were used in classroom instruction to supplement lessons involving living or vouchered plants. These wall charts were first documented in Germany in the 1820s. In addition to featuring many beautiful German charts, the book includes examples of charts from various countries.
This Arbor Day the LuEsther T. Mertz Library is hoping you find friends, family, and neighbors to plant with! Today we are featuring some titles from our Children’s Collection that will help the youngest of readers understand the importance of trees and the celebration of Arbor Day. To learn more about Arbor Day celebrations near you, check out Arborday.org.
The townsfolk of this newly erected prairie town try to establish community, friendship, and home. Their plan for the town square is only missing one thing: trees! This story follows Katie and her father as they work together with friends and neighbors to plant trees throughout the town. After a successful Arbor Day, the townsfolk pledge to return each year to plant more trees. As the trees grow, so do the families. Katie celebrates Arbor Day each year with her father, her daughter, her husband, and the town. As more trees are planted and the others grow, the town has plenty of branches to climb, fruit to eat, and shade to find. Cyd Moore’s illustrations allow readers to experience the town coming to life as they turn each page. Arbor Day Square is a wonderful way to connect with family and friends before planting your own special tree.
Esther Jackson is the Public Services Librarian at NYBG’s LuEsther T. Mertz Library where she manages Reference and Circulation services and oversees the Plant Information Office. She spends much of her time assisting researchers, providing instruction related to library resources, and collaborating with NYBG staff on various projects related to Garden initiatives and events.
The Urban Farm Handbook: City-Slicker Resources for Growing, Raising, Sourcing, Trading, and Preparing What You Eat is a 2011 book by Annette Cottrell and Joshua McNichols for Skipstone. The word “handbook” is frequently applied to a variety of books, some useful and some less useful. “Handbook,” in the case of Urban Farm Handbook, is appropriately used, as Cottrell and McNicols provide readers with hundreds of tips and resources for every aspiring and current urban homesteader.
Handbook is divided into four seasons. Each season includes suggested seasonal chores related to food, both plant and animal. Do you want to keep chickens for eggs? Plant a vegetable garden? Learn home food preservation? Raise and slaughter rabbits for meat? All this and more is discussed in the Handbook. Readers can jump into a chapter to learn about a single topic, or read the book from cover to cover and get the tools for undergoing a radical lifestyle change.
This year Earth Day falls on Friday, which means there is a whole weekend of Earth Day festivities around New York City and here at NYBG! The LuEsther T. Mertz Library is inviting you to check out some of our favorite books that will be perfect reads to tie into your Earth Day plans. Young and advanced readers alike will get into the spirit of the holiday with these titles from our Children’s Collection. We hope you visit us and enjoy your Earth Day celebrations!
Anywhere Farm by Phyllis Root/Illustrated by G. Brian Karas (2017)
Farms are everywhere! You just have to look! A box, a shoe, a lot… anywhere can be a farm because all you need is sunshine, soil, water, and a seed. The rhythmic narrative of Anywhere Farm drives home the idea that gardening, farming, and planting can take many forms. Examples of this are easy to find in the colorful illustrations that grace each page. This is the perfect book to offer to new and experienced readers as it simply inspires all to get creative and just plant!
Esther Jackson is the Public Services Librarian at NYBG’s LuEsther T. Mertz Library where she manages Reference and Circulation services and oversees the Plant Information Office. She spends much of her time assisting researchers, providing instruction related to library resources, and collaborating with NYBG staff on various projects related to Garden initiatives and events.
From the first page, Arthur draws the readers in with a friendly, assuring, and easy tone. She writes for people who want to grow edible plants and also for those who have a love for ornamentals. As such, she advocates for “foodscaping,” or growing food alongside flowers in a landscape that already exists. By mixing annual vegetables with perennial ornamentals (or other combinations), home gardeners can have access to delicious and organic produce without sacrificing the ornamentals they love.
Jan van Kessel the Elder (Flemish, 1626-79). [Study of plants and insects, arachnids, mollusks, and reptiles] (detail), 1653-58. Oil on copper. Courtesy of Oak Spring Garden Library.On Friday, January 27, 2017, the Humanities Institute—LuEsther T. Mertz Library and the Oak Spring Garden Foundation presented a special Study Day and Colloquium in conjunction with the exhibition Redouté to Warhol: Bunny Mellon’s Botanical Art, a selection of extraordinary works of art assembled by Rachel Lambert Mellon at Oak Spring, her estate in Upperville Virginia. The full-day program included a morning Study Session and afternoon Colloquium, both of which focused on the theme of great American collectors and their exceptional botanical collections.
As I huffed and puffed my way up that steep path from the road to Thuya Garden high on the hillside near Northeast Harbor on Mount Desert Island, Maine, I thought that this time curiosity about the books in the Rare Book Room of the LuEsther T. Mertz Library had taken me too far. That day in July 2016 was blisteringly hot and I was sweaty and thirsty. But there it was at last, a rustic board-and-batten house with a porch, appearing out of the forest of evergreen trees and shrubs at the end of the stone path. It looked just like the drawing on the bookplates I’d found in two books in the Mertz Library.
Joseph Henry Curtis (1846-1928) began to summer at Northeast Harbor on Mount Desert Island on the Maine coast in the 1870’s and later he bought a property on the slope of a mountain near Northeast Harbor, becoming one of the first summer residents of a growing summer colony of wealthy families. Curtis spent the rest of his life turning his property into a mountainside park, building a trail with granite stairways and scenic lookouts ascending the steep slope to a board-and-batten cottage that he named Thuya Lodge after the local white cedar tree, Thuja occidentalis. In 1905 Curtis created a trust to maintain his estate as a public trust for the local community; when he died his friend Charles Savage became director of the trust.
The circulating children’s collection at the LuEsther T. Mertz Library has titles that support the creative imaginations of our young readers! The fantastical illustrations and lyrical narratives offered in many of our books invite readers to experience a world beyond the surface all while digging deep to learn about the environment around them. The titles featured below are new to our shelves and are perfect examples of fun and educational reads. We hope to see you in the library soon!
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