How Parks Connect Us
… and Why It Matters

A Park Connects Us
Spring is in the air, and we’re pulled outdoors to wander in our favorite city parks. Ducks are dabbling; frogs are trilling; the apple trees are bursting into bloom. Everywhere, it seems, children frolic and neighbors wave. It’s been a long winter, but our cities are alive.

Books about Trees

A Tree is Nice
With hats off to our friends at the tree-fes­tooned Iowa Arbore­tumMin­neso­ta Land­scape Arbore­tum, Chica­go Botan­ic Gar­dens, and Oma­ha’s Lau­ritzen Gar­dens, this list is ded­i­cat­ed to arborists every­where, pro­fes­sion­al and ama­teur … you take care of an essen­tial part of our ecosys­tem. Thank you. Here’s a list of books for younger and old­er chil­dren, fic­tion and non­fic­tion.
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Untamed Companion Booktalks

Magic Gourd
To get you start­ed on the Book­storm™ Books … 
  The Chim­panzees I Love: Sav­ing Their World and Ours Jane Goodall
Scholas­tic Press, 2001 Uses sto­ries of indi­vid­ual chim­panzees to share infor­ma­tion about chim­panzee behav­ior and their envi­ron­ment as well as the author’s own biography Heav­i­ly illus­trat­ed with engag­ing photos Wealth of infor­ma­tion pre­sent­ed in nar­ra­tive, side­bar com­men­tary, pic­ture cap­tions, quo­ta­tions, and back matter
  The Ele­phant Scientist Caitlin O’Connell and Don­na M.
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Two for the Show: How Does Your Garden Grow?

by Phyl­lis Root and Jacque­line Brig­gs Martin It’s high sum­mer in the gar­den, with an abun­dance of veg­eta­bles to har­vest and flow­ers abuzz with pol­li­na­tors. Crunchy car­rots, leafy kale, sun-warm toma­toes, gar­lic bulbs, green beans, zuc­chi­ni (some gigan­tic) all offer them­selves to the gar­den­er. But more grows in a gar­den than plants. Peo­ple grow, too, and con­nec­tions between peo­ple take root and blos­som.… more