The Vanderbeekers and the Hidden Garden

The Vanderbeekers and the Hidden Garden, by Karina Yan Glaser, is a wonderful sequel to “The Vanderbeekers on 141st Street” The Vanderbeekers are looking at a boring summer. Isa is at music camp, nothing exciting seems to be happening. But when something does happen, it is the last thing they ever wanted. Mr. Jeet has a stroke, and it shakes up life at the brownstone, but not in a good way: Mama becomes more concerned about health, and so meals become healthier, and the kids hate that, Ms. Josie is always sad, and everyone is worried about Mr. Jeet. Ms. Josie always talks about the abandoned lot next to the church, and how the kids should make it into a community garden. The kids decide to do just this, and surprise Mr. Jeet and Ms. Josie. It takes a lot of work: figuring out how to get money for gardening supplies, getting the supplies, then the actual garden work, cleaning up the lot and creating the garden. Other problems occur, besides only having nineteen days to turn it into a garden, there’s also a mean, nosey real estate agent, an annoying kid, and the problem of keeping it secret. But they are the Vanderbeekers, and surely they’ll pull it off… won’t they? I love this book, and hope you will too.