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Good books, old friends

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By Kara G. Kvasnicka

Tuesday, November 29, -0001

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It has saved me long-distance calling costs to my sister in Tennessee and has made it much easier for me to chat with friends and colleagues I rarely see.

Nevertheless, I place a much higher premium on snail mail than e-mail. I have a large box of cards and letters with which I refuse to part, while I delete most of my e-mail as soon as I read it.

Letter writers compose their thoughts with care and precision while electronic correspondents tend to reveal almost too much about themselves in the rapid succession of messages that can be exchanged over the Internet in a relatively short time.

E-mail is a significant development in the realm of communications but letter writing is an art.

The Gardener (Farrar, Strauss, Giroux, 1997, $15) is a picture book for 5- to 9-year-olds written by Sarah Stewart and illustrated by her husband, David Small. It will appeal to everyone who enjoys receiving letters.

In January the American Library Association awarded Small a 1998 Caldecott Honor Medal for The Gardener's soft, lovely illustrations steeped in poignant and amusing detail. His award-winning pictures double as stationery on which Stewart skillfully tells a story of the Depression entirely through letters penned by her delightful heroine, Lydia Grace Finch.

The letters of this endearing redhead on the cusp of adolescence provide an intriguing contrast between the financial adversities which defined the Depression Era with the timeless hope, optimism and resourcefulness of children.

Lydia Grace's first letter, dated Aug. 27, 1935, is an earnest acceptance of her Uncle Jim's invitation to live with him in the big city until her parents find enough work to support her and her grandmother. Lydia Grace is very close to her grandmother from whom she has inherited a love and aptitude for gardening.

Most children would balk at the idea of being sent to live with a relative they hardly know. Not Lydia Grace. She is either an extraordinarily mature and cooperative young lady or trying to convince herself she can be, confidently declaring to Uncle Jim, "I'm small, but strong, and I'll help you all I can."

Shaped by hardship as well as love for her family, Lydia Grace thinks nothing of taking the long train journey to the city by herself.

"The train is rocking me to sleep, and every time I doze off, I dream of gardens."

Likewise she is determined to make the best of her new life in unfamiliar surroundings with an uncle who apparently never smiles. She is only momentarily overwhelmed by the tall, imposing buildings that comprise her new landscape. In one of Small's most moving illustrations she looks very small and very lost in the dark, airless train station where Uncle Jim comes to meet her.

By the next page she is planning neighborhood improvements.

"There are window boxes here! They look as if they've been waiting for me, so now we'll both wait for spring … P.S. Uncle Jim doesn't smile."

As if keeping up with homework assignments, helping Uncle Jim run his bakery and planting seeds in window boxes were not enough, Lydia Grace sets a couple more ambitious goals for herself.

First and foremost, she has resolved to make Uncle Jim smile — no matter what it takes.

Then she discovers atop Uncle Jim's building the perfect place for a garden that cannot help but make him smile.

"Dear Mama, Papa and Grandma, I've discovered a secret place. You can't imagine how wonderful it is … I have great plans. Thank you for all your letters. I'll try to write more, but I'm really busy planting all your seeds in cracked teacups and bent cake pans! And, Grandma, you should smell the good dirt I'm bringing home from the vacant lot down the street. Love to all, Lydia Grace."

Although the heroines are dissimilar, you will begin to understand at this point in The Gardener that it is in many ways a clever and original update of Frances Hodgson Burnett's children's classic The Secret Garden, first published in Great Britain in 1911.

As Lydia Grace's plantings gradually begin to grow and soften the stark brick structures of a dispirited city, Lydia Grace's secret garden takes on all the same literal and symbolic meanings as Mary Lennox's walled oasis on the harsh Yorkshire moor.

As her flowers bloom so does Lydia Grace.

"I am bursting with happiness! The entire city seems so beautiful, especially this morning. The secret place is ready for Uncle Jim … I've tried to remember everything you ever taught me about beauty … P.S. I can already imagine Uncle Jim's smile."

Unfortunately, there has to be some permanent reminder of the hard times these characters have endured. Uncle Jim's utter inability to smile — even amidst a profusion of new blossoms — is it.

But Lydia Grace is sensitive enough to know that Uncle Jim has not been unaffected by her hard work and generosity. She describes his reaction to her secret garden in one of her final letters to the folks back home.

"He appeared with the most amazing cake I've ever seen — covered in flowers! I truly believe that cake equals one thousand smiles."

Uncle Jim also produces from his pocket a letter containing the news that Lydia Grace's father has found a job and she can, after almost a year away, go home.

Succinct yet rich in content, Lydia Grace's letters remind us of the rewards we can reap from good old-fashioned letter writing. They also provide us with an introduction to some charming new literary friends whose positive approach to coping with adversity is a lesson for us all.

Small's illustrations nicely complement the letters, perfectly capturing characters' expressions and Lydia Grace's impressions of her train ride to the city and her temporary home. He shrewdly includes in one of his first drawings a sample of Lydia Grace's actual handwriting.

Of course, his greatest achievement is Uncle Jim's frown — the most captivating in children's literature.

Small's final rendering of Lydia Grace's rooftop garden will make you yearn for signs of spring just as Lydia Grace's last postscript will leave you satisfied but a bit sad that you will not get to peek any further into her private correspondence.

Kvasnicka, a former East Village Magazine news editor, has been the magazine's contributing editor and research consultant since 1989. She has a master's degree in information and library studies from the University of Michigan and works for the Genesee District Library.

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