Pros: Story, scenery and illustrations, the back-page legacy, the Lady
Cons: None from me!
The Bottom Line: Biographies of inspirational people, like Lady Bird Johnson, have a lot to offer young readers and adult readers. This is valuable for all fans of wildflowers.
pestyside's Full Review: Kathi Appelt - Miss Lady Bird's Wildflowers: How A...
If travels take you to Austin, and you enjoy massive displays of wildflowers, let your heart lead you to the The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center to discover one of the end results of Lady Bird Johnson’s life. This was her love, her passion, and the source of her spirit. I keep a National Wildflower Center member sticker on the back of both cars—the stickers look too worn but they remain after ten years. It’s time to renew my membership.
Miss Lady Bird’s Wildflowers tells the story behind the passion that this former First Lady shared with the country. The book, a children’s picture book written for third and fourth grade, moved me far more than expected with a simple statement. "When asked why she helped found the center, Lady Bird told reporters that it was her way of ‘paying rent for the space I have taken up in this highly interesting world.’ To stand on its lovely grounds is to experience a moment of natural beauty."
My first visit of the center was interesting. They had recently moved from east Austin to far south Austin. They had just had their grand opening and I was in town from northeast Texas, unaware of this move or the grand opening, and I was also unaware they weren’t open on Mondays. I stood at the gate, like a disappointed child standing at Disney Land. Someone inside invited me in and in I went. The grounds were raw, undeveloped, but the promise was there. I’ll never forget their friendliness, which was inspired by their founder.
Yes, over time I’ve spent many years there, as a member and colleague; I’ve met their founder and watched her from a distance. I know the respect her passion nurtured and inspired among staff and supporters. I’ve seen the influence of her care across the landscape of the Texas highways, an interest that expanded nationwide. Highways became lined with displays of red clover, poppies, blue bonnets, Indian paintbrush, Indian blankets, Mexican hats, pink evening primrose, and on and on and mixed with tall grasses, spreading oak trees, and junipers.
This beautiful book for children, written by Kathi Appelt and illustrated by Joy Fisher Hein, documents the evolution of Lady Bird Johnson’s love for wildflowers. Beginning with her mother, motivated by a need for connecting with the mother she lost while only six, we follow her through college, meeting Lyndon Baines Johnson, raising her children, and as a widow, rediscovering the comfort from her first love—wildflowers.
Growing up in East Texas without her mother she found herself bonded to memories of her mother that were nurtured by a neighbor and later encouraged by an Aunt. While this is a beautiful story of a young woman who grew up to motivate a nation to cultivate a wildflower movement, it is also a story of hope for a young child who has lost a beloved parent. It is touching, as well as informative. Understanding the loss and emotions behind Lady Bird’s desire to lead a wildflower movement, to support the formation of a national wildflower research center, and to pass it on to children, merely provided more insight and respect onto a woman I already admired.
Probably one of the best things her widowed father did was to invite her Aunt Effie to join them in Texas. It was from this fantastic aunt, and her limited memories of her mother, that she learned how to pay attention to nature. The flowers and the gardens became the companions for this lonely girl and later when she lived in Washington D.C. she remembered this influence while watching children play in a cement world. Author Kathi Appelt drew upon her relationships with people close to Lady Bird to write this biography, but she also drew upon her experience as a writer to provide a memorable and moving image of this first lady of wildflowers. It has been a long time since a child's book moved me--actually I'm not sure it has ever happened.
Joy Fisher Hein’s beautiful illustrations depict many regions of Texas often unknown by anyone living outside the state: the beautiful swampy regions surrounding Caddo Lake, the majestic blue-hazed Hill Country, as well as the Piney Woods of East Texas. We watch this young girl, through Ms. Hein’s careful attention to detail, grow up and later move to Washington, D.C. and later return to her beloved Texas Hill Country.
A final page describes her legacy, which most definitely includes the National Wildflower Research Center. If you think the final images of the center are unrealistic, you need to visit in a good April. This means when the winter and late fall rains were really generous and the seeds were set at the right time, and the flowering season should be incredible. (Most years, but not all years!) The images of the center are accurate, right down to large orb weaving spiders that gaze out over the wild gardens of the center that also look out to the west and surrounding hills of the Texas Hill Country.
The legacy--Mrs. Johnson, states, "Wildflowers and native plants are as much a part of our national heritage as Old Faithful or the Capitol building. The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center is not only her legacy. It’s ours too."
Who should read this? Any child who enjoys nature, who challenges you by planting gardens, who loves plants, but also any child who has lost a special parent and is looking for a connection. Who else should read this? Any adult who enjoys nature, who loves gardening (especially with native plants), and who feels a responsibility and sense of stewardship perhaps to follow or explore, in some way, the path that Mrs. Johnson, Miss Rumphius,or Johnny Appleseed began. The thing is, she was real.
If in Austin some April (or any time of the year), visit her legacy, The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. There’s no need for me to write a review of this location, the existing Very Helpful reviews definitely do it justice and I thank them.
Lady Bird Johnson passed away July 11, 2007, at the age of 94. Who, among all the children that she inspired, will follow and walk into the future along the path she began?
This beautiful picture book tells the heartwarming story of how Lady Bird Johnson shared her love of wildflowers with the nation when her husband, Lyn...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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