A moving story of one boy's efforts to make amends after destroying a neighbor's garden. Every year my father and I plant a garden. Tomatoes, peppers, onions, marigolds, and zinnias grow in neat, straight rows.... And every spring my father tells me about Mr. Bellavista and the summer my father was ten.That was the summer the boys lost a baseball under a tomato plant in Mr. Bellavista's garden. And someone tossed a tomato back instead of the baseball. A lively battle took place, which seemed like great fun at the time, but in the end Mr. Bellavista's garden had been destroyed. In a touching story of one boy's efforts to make amends, we see the rebuilding of a garden and the forming of a relationship across generations. With luminous, beautifully detailed watercolors, the artist has captured both the sadness and the quiet joy woven throughout the tale. A father tells his daughter while they plant a garden together of the guilt he felt when, as a child, he vandalized a neighbor's garden. |