The latest picture book from Lane Smith, GRANDPA GREEN (Roaring Brook, 2011) is exquisite, simply exquisite. As the story opens, a simple narrative thread tells readers of a man born a long time ago who studied to become a horticulturist but ended having to go to fight in a war instead. Later, he married and had kids and grandkids and even a great-grandkid (our narrator). Now that the boy is old he forgets some things but the green things he has nurtured help him to remember. Touching, poignant text is accompanied by illustrations that are populated with growing shrubs, trees, and bushes most of which take the shape of the important events and points in the boy's life. Shades of green from the palest to the deepest exude emotion and meaning. Thank you Lucy for sending me a copy of this remarkable book. It has special meaning to me and will have that special meaning, I suspect, for countless others. <413>
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