Come follow along on a special adventure! Valerie Bodayr & Marilyn Scott-Waters have created an amazing book of fun and educational activities to accompany The Secret Garden.
About the Book
Title: A Year in the Life of the Secret Garden | Author: Valarie Budayr | Illustrator: Marilyn Scott-Waters | Publication Date: November, 2014 | Publisher: Audrey Press | Pages: 144 | Recommended Ages: 5 to 99
Book Description: Award-winning authors Valarie Budayr and Marilyn Scott-Waters have co-created A Year in the Secret Garden to introduce the beloved children’s classic, The Secret Garden to a new generation of families. This guide uses over two hundred full color illustrations and photos to bring the magical story to life, with fascinating historical information, monthly gardening activities, easy-to-make recipes, and step-by-step crafts, designed to enchant readers of all ages. Each month your family will unlock the mysteries of a Secret Garden character, as well as have fun together creating the original crafts and activities based on the book.Over 140 pages, with 200 original color illustrations and 48 activities for your family and friends to enjoy, learn, discover and play with together. A Year In the Secret Garden is our opportunity to introduce new generations of families to the magic of this classic tale in a modern and innovative way that creates special learning and play times outside in nature. This book encourages families to step away from technology and into the kitchen, garden, reading nook and craft room.
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Our Review
A Year In The Secret Garden is a very unique and special book. It’s perfect for those who want to be crafty but don’t know where to start. It took Valerie over a year and a half to put this book together. She enjoyed doing it, but not as much as you’ll enjoy using it!
When our book arrived it was so beautiful I couldn’t wait to get my nose stuck in. I put everything aside I’d had planned for the evening, put on my pjs, made a big mug of tea and climbed into the book. You don’t need to read “The Secret Garden” to enjoy A Year In The Secret Garden! It’s a lovely stand-alone book as well.
A Year In The Secret Garden is divided into months. Each month has a variety of the following: a recipe, a craft, a game, some history, some cultural information and a character study. The pages are colour-coordinated by season for easy reference, too.
We were just so enthused about the activities for the month of April, that we’ve tried to do most of them!
There is a delicious-looking recipe for cupcakes included, but we haven’t made it because of allergies in the household, but we did make a loaf and had fun following the instructions to make little robins to sit on it. As you can see, the activities are easy to adapt. We’ve turned an Easter recipe into an autumn/winter one with our pumpkin loaf and adding a little ‘snow’. In the UK, robins are often seen on Christmas cards, so these little fellas work year-round.
There is a mason bee house that children can make. While there are mason bees in England and Wales, the are absent from Northern Ireland. However, we will still place our ‘house’ outside and use it as a ‘bug hotel’ and see which little creatures will find it comfortable. The adaptability of this book is also what makes it so useful.
A pattern to make Dickon’s felt creatures is included (you don’t need to worry about cutting the pages of this lovely book, there’s a ‘secret’ place you can go to download them. The children had great fun sewing a fox and a bunny. Now they want to make more.
We’re trying to source some ‘old money’ to borrow so the children can learn more about it. Tristan’s all about cash at the moment, so that will be interesting!
If you’re VERY ambitious, you could do an activity a week and still not complete everything within this book! I think we’ll take our time over a few years as the children grow to return to the story and this book and do new activities each year. You’ll never grow tired of it. I’m learning a lot from this book already and we’ll absolutely be using it over and over again!
About the Author: Valarie Budayr
Valarie Budayr loves reading and bringing books alive. Her popular website, www.jumpintoabook.com, inspires children and adults alike to experience their books through play, discovery, and adventure.
She is founder of Audrey Press, an independent publishing house, as well as an Amazon and iTunes best-selling author. She has written The Fox Diaries: The Year the Foxes Came to our Garden and The Ultimate Guide to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Valarie is passionate about making kid’s books come alive and encouraging families and schools to pull books off the shelves and stories off the pages.
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About the Illustrator: Marilyn Scott-Waters
Marilyn Scott-Waters loves making things out of paper. Her popular website, www.thetoymaker.com, receives 2,000 to 7,000 visitors each day, who have downloaded more than six million of her easy-to-make paper toys. Her goal is to help parents and children spend time together making things.
She is the creator of a paper toy craft book series The Toymaker’s Christmas: Paper Toys You Can Make Yourself (Sterling), and The Toymaker’s Workshop: Paper Toys You Can Make Yourself (Sterling). She is also the co-creator with J. H. Everett of the middle grade nonfiction series, Haunted Histories, (Christy Ottaviano Books / Henry Holt Books for Young Readers). Ms. Scott-Waters illustrated The Search For Vile Things (Scholastic), and created paper engineering for Pop & Sniff Fruit (Piggy Toes Press).
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