The concrete garden by Bob Graham

In an extra large block of apartments children have hibernated during the long cold winter and weeks of lockdown. Today they take the lift from the fifteenth floor to the ground floor and rush outside while Amanda trails behind with a box of crayons.

Once outside the children watch as Amanda draws a large circle. Then Jackson takes a chalk and turns it into a dandelion, then Janet adds a mushroom and the twins draw flowers. Lovejoy adds a very large snail to the mushroom and Luke’s dog smudges the flowers. Indira uses the large quantity of green chalk to add foliage and a palm tree, rivalling the tall dandelion. Each of the children adds another part of the garden, the twins add a cloud, Cecelia adds an alien and Arthur puts a bird of paradise on the palm tree. When these are finished, Rosie stands in the cloud and after much thought she adds a Queen of Swirls. More things are added: butterflies, a bumblebee and caterpillar, making an exotic colourful garden on the cement outside the apartment block.

Nasrin looking out from her balcony, spies the garden. She takes a photo and immediately sends it to her mother far away in Isfahan, telling her how much she misses her. With a teary face, the woman forwards the message to everyone she knows and the photo wends its way back to the apartment block. Soon everyone in the block is leaning over their balconies looking at the beauty below. They cheer and take photos and the children bow.

The garden and its queen remain there for three days but the next day it rains, washing the garden away. The children play in the water, and when Amanda comes down with the empty box, she pulls it apart for the children to make boats to sail in the gutters. The cardboard boats sail down rainbow filled gutters as the last of the chalk is washed away.

The community of children coming together to make something beautiful for them all to enjoy, relishing the togetherness that unfolds is powerful. Their camaraderie is transported to all the members of the building as they all share in what the children have created. Bob Graham depicts the lives of a group of people stuck indoors for some time. As they bundle out of the lift, the adults are all masked, a nod to the pandemic which has recently restricted out lives. But the children just want to be outside, picking up the simplest of activities with gusto and imagination, creating a garden like no other, working together to shrug off the lonely months they have endured.

Graham includes a wonderful dog nosing through the garden, weeing on the twins’ flowers, scratching his fleas. The endpapers are intriguing, reminding me of all the graphs we saw on the interminable nightly news showing us how the pandemic was progressing, while undeterred, Amanda keeps her chalk on the page.

A wonderful positive story replete with overtones of diversity, companionship, community togetherness and creativity, this book is a perfect salve for the days of lockdown and social distancing. Children will be eager to replicate the drawing of the garden, turning their cement areas into oases of colour and interest, limited only by their imaginations.

Themes: Gardens, Apartment life, Friendship, Painting, Diversity, Creativity, Community.

Fran Knight