The atmospheric art is nice, but there is no plot, the character development is lackluster, and there are lots of unanswered questions, like why this girl's mom was completely chill with her hanging out alone in the woods with a boy she'd just met.

3.5

80%

beautifully illustrated with clearly a lot of study and effort put into it, so it's a massive shame that it didn't include color; it would've been super cool if color was slowly injected into the story as the main character started observing more and more of the nature around her.

I can’t remember what the secret garden is about, since I read when I was so little. I was thinking it would be like an Alice in wonderland type thing, but nah. It was still a cute story, even though it didn’t have any magic. It was a cozy little slice of life tale. Reminded me of how it felt to play in the woods as a kid. Not what I was expecting at all, but still a cute book. I would recommend this to all kids and any adults who enjoyed playing outside as a kid. Just don’t expect anything magical to happen like the description says, because nothing magical happens. It’s definitely realism. No magical realism. Just realism. Anyway, cute story, would recommend.

I loved the quote, “there’s more to language than just words”. ♥️

(I have an advance readers copy from NetGalley, this quote is subject to change by the time the book is released but loved it too much to not mention it here) I also loved that there weren’t a lot of words in this book. I love picture books because it lets you use your imagination more instead of reading too much dialogue.

Side note: I didn’t like how the girl was making the same face in pretty much every picture. It was the weirdest looking facial expression to be making all the time. As if she just ate some sour lemons. The pictures in general were lacking something, maybe color? If it had some color to add a more whimsical feel to it (and better facial expressions), I would’ve given this a 5 star rating.

Another side note: It also made me cry because my nana died and I’m still grieving her death every day. If you’re going through the death of a grandmother this will definitely make you cry.

In the end -
Nature is so important. Listen to it. The whole world is alive if you pay attention.