My 7-year old granddaughter likes to select her own books off the library shelves. First she looks through the pictures and then decides whether it’s a keeper. Recently, she found Aunt Mary’s Rose by Douglas Wood.
I can understand how she’d be drawn to LeUyen Pham’s illustrations. Their warmth and realism remind me of the Norman Rockwell style drawings I used to enjoy in my grandma’s Saturday Evening Post magazines.
After my daughter read it to her, she was so moved by the story that she cried for half an hour! When my daughter asked her how it made her feel, she said she was sad that she didn’t get to know her great-grandma who passed away when she was a baby.
The book does touch on some sensitive themes for the recommended ages of 4 – 8: the Great Depression, the loss of a family war hero, care taking, and endurance. But they’re lightened by Aunt Mary’s gentle storytelling and the promise of her apple pie. As she peels apples in her kitchen, Aunt Mary explains to her young nephew that if he takes care of the old family rosebush, then “one day there will be a little bit of you inside of it. And a little bit of the rose inside of you.”
Young Douglas, who looks about the same age as my granddaughter, tries to understand his aunt’s “riddle.” He examines the rosebush very carefully, but all he sees is the rosebush. Aunt Mary tells him that the rose has been in her family for three generations. Her grandfather planted the rose and when she was a little girl, her father explained that just like the sun and wind help plants grow, so do love and nurturing.
Aunt Mary tells Douglas that besides nurturing that rosebush, she helped raise his father and uncle. They came to live with her and her parents during the Depression—because “that’s what families do. They take care of each other and they love each other.” As the story unfolds, Douglas begins to get a sense of the importance of that rose.
The author dedicates the book to the memory of his Aunt Mary and notes on the book jacket that “Aunt Mary’s rose, an old-fashioned rugosa shrub, has survived for a long time now. Part of it still grows in my mother’s yard and part has been replanted into ours. In the years since my childhood, our own boys have helped to care for it—and through its beauty, hardiness, and living memories, it still helps to care for us.”
Knowing that the story is autobiographical and that the rose bush lives on, makes it even more poignant and understandable that it would evoke such emotion in my granddaughter. I admire Douglas Wood for his ability to convey such powerful values of loving family traditions to such young readers.
This sounds like a book I would love to share with my grandchildren!