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    Green Thumbs-Up!
    Green Thumbs-Up!
    Green Thumbs-Up!
    Ebook110 pages2 hours

    Green Thumbs-Up!

    By Jenny Meyerhoff and Éva Chatelain

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    About this ebook

    To make a new city feel like home, Anna gets involved with a community garden—and cultivates new friendships as well as flowers and vegetables—in the first book in the Friendship Garden series.

    It may be the orange and red season of fall, but eight-year-old Anna Fincher feels nothing but gray. She and her family have just moved to Chicago for her mom’s new job. Not only does Anna miss her tiny hometown and her true-blue best friends, but she misses her garden. Over the summer she and her friends had been growing big red tomatoes, bright green beans, and pink raspberries on a small plot of land in Anna’s backyard.

    Now, just when it’s fall harvest time back home, Anna is stuck in a boring apartment with no yard, and starting a brand-new school with kids who are anything but friendly. Until one day Anna makes an amazing discovery: a little community garden right in the middle of the city. And a small idea begins to take root in a big way.

    What if a bunch of kids took over a neglected, forgotten little garden plot? Could they make anything bloom—even friendship?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAladdin
    Release dateSep 8, 2015
    ISBN9781481439077
    Green Thumbs-Up!
    Author

    Jenny Meyerhoff

    As a child in West Bloomfield, Michigan, Jenny Meyerhoff often read a book a night. In third grade, she read Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret twenty-one times. Her first attempt at a children’s book, The Leprechaun Who Never Found a Pot of Gold, was written when she was in first grade. From that moment on, Jenny has dreamed of becoming a professional children’s book writer. Jenny studied creative writing at the University of Michigan, and received her master’s degree in education at Northwestern University. She then became a kindergarten teacher because, in addition to loving children’s books, Jenny enjoys sitting on the floor. (That’s also why she practices yoga.) Jenny is now a full-time writer and a full-time mom, which means that she never sleeps. She lives in Riverwoods, Illinois, with her husband and three children.

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      Book preview

      Green Thumbs-Up! - Jenny Meyerhoff

      G-R-A-Y.

      That’s what Anna saw when she looked out the window of her third-grade classroom at Sullivan Magnet School. Gray sky. Gray playground. Gray sidewalk. Even the squirrels were gray. All that gray made Anna’s brain bleary. Ever since she’d moved to Chicago last week, Anna felt gray.

      •  •  •

      At her old school in New York—not New York City, like everyone seemed to think when they heard New York, but a tiny town called Rosendale—the view from Anna’s classroom was bursting with green. But through the window at Anna’s school in downtown Chicago, the only hint of color was the orange safety vest of the playground monitor.

      Her teacher, Mr. Hoffman, stood at the smart board. He pushed his clicker and words appeared on the screen. Persuasive Speech.

      "In a persuasive speech you must persuade someone; that is, convince them to do or believe something. This week you will work in small groups to write and present a persuasive speech to our class."

      Anna glanced around the room. The phrase small groups sent a tingle of worry up her spine. Although the other students were looking around too, no one looked Anna’s way. Who could she work with?

      It was only the fourth day of school and Anna hadn’t made any friends yet. Her parents kept telling her that she was just between friends, but that was hard to believe, especially since none of her new classmates would even look at her.

      A few kids at school seemed like they might be okay, but others made it clear that they weren’t looking for new friends. These were mostly girls who dressed like movie stars and carried cell phones everywhere. In her head, Anna had nicknamed those girls the Outfit-Outfit, since outfit was another word for a group, and this outfit seemed to care a lot about their outfits. Anna liked nicknaming things.

      You may choose any topic, Mr. Hoffman continued, as long as everyone in your group agrees.

      If Hayley and Lauren were in Anna’s classroom, the three of them wouldn’t even have to ask if they wanted to work together. They just knew those kinds of things by looking at one another. Back in Rosendale, they had done everything together. Anna had named their group the True-Blue Besties.

      Over by the big glass aquarium sat a girl with dark wavy hair and glasses who was always first to raise her hand when Mr. Hoffman asked a question. Her name was Kaya. Anna had noticed that Kaya took turns writing with a different colored pencil for every subject. Anna thought she might ask Kaya to work with her, but she didn’t know if she could persuade Kaya to say yes. First she’d have to persuade Kaya to put down her colored pencils. Whenever Kaya wasn’t doing schoolwork, she was drawing.

      Anna was pretty sure she wasn’t any good at persuading. She had tried to persuade her parents not to move to Chicago, but they moved anyway.

      Mr. Hoffman straightened his bow tie. Every day he wore blue jeans, a button-down shirt, and a bow tie. He straightened his bow tie a lot. Anna wondered if it was too tight.

      Every day Anna wore tights or socks with an interesting pattern. Today she wore rainbow-striped kneesocks. At her old school, her classmates were always interested in what tights Anna was wearing. At her new school, no one ever noticed them. Except for the Outfit-Outfit. On the first day of school, the leader of the Outfit-Outfit, Mackenzie, had said, "What’s on your tights? Pictures of beetles?" It had actually been pictures of seven-spot ladybirds, which are a kind of beetle, but Anna decided not to tell Mackenzie that.

      "I will assign the groups," Mr. Hoffman announced, and Anna breathed a sigh of relief. The Outfit-Outfit groaned.

      Mr. Hoffman continued. Right now you will have fifteen minutes to talk about your ideas. Speeches will be given on Friday, so you have five days to complete the assignment.

      Anna’s eyes searched the room again. Jessica, a girl with red curly hair and braces, didn’t look at her. Reed, a boy with reddish hair and colorful, squeezy, squishy stress balls on his desk, didn’t look at her. Neither did Sarah and Mona, the twins with glasses.

      Group number one, said Mr. Hoffman. Anna Fincher.

      Anna crossed her fingers.

      Kaya Reynolds, continued Mr. Hoffman. Kaya put down her pencil and looked at Anna. Anna smiled. Kaya straightened her glasses, picked up a different pencil, and started to sketch.

      Reed Madigan. Mr. Hoffman pointed to the far corner of the room. Group One can meet near the book nook. Bring pencils and notebooks.

      Anna grabbed her things and met Kaya and Reed in the book nook. Reed brought his orange squeezy ball.

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