GARDENING & LANDSCAPING

Flower Fables is a treasury of six different stories penned by Louisa May Alcott. These old-fashioned fairy tales have been compiled and edited by Daniel Shealy, who has done editing on several Alcott books. The text is very readable, and has magic flavor added via the font's joining together of several letters. Today's children, like many children of the past, will enjoy meeting Alcott's fairies, sentient flowers, and other real and imagined characters. Illustrator Leah Palmer Preiss has filled the book with delightful and interesting fairies and other creatures. The illustrations are bright and full. Readers may want to watch for the bonuses of quotations and tiny portraits of those who influenced Louisa May Alcott. This book would make a good bedtime storybook, and like many tales of old, has good morals that children could take away with them perhaps without even realizing there was a lesson involved. The afterword is also interesting as it shares interesting details about Miss Alcott. For example, she wrote these tales when she was 16. Another bonus at the end of the book is the biographies that go along with the quotations and miniature portraits. Hardcover 210 pages

This colorful Victorian book evokes an age gone by, when communication between people was a very special occasion, made more difficult by time and space. To Victorian letter-writers of the West, a new, exotic, and secret language came from the East, communicating through flowers. With more than 300 colorful Victorian illustrations of flowers, anyone wanting to know what to send for that perfect arrangement can turn to this beautiful dictionary. The first section gives the flowers and their meanings; the second has the words and their flowers, making it useful for either giving or receiving. Hardcover 96 pages

The signs are all around. Step onto any New England landscape, and you'll be surrounded by clues to its past. All you need is a little help to interpret what you're seeing. In this fascinating book, the author takes us into the countryside and opens our eyes to the telltale traces of vanished homes, mills, farms, communities, and industry. Color photos and pencil sketches throughout. Paperback. 240 pgs.

Wildflowers of Maine presents a selection of the color paintings of pioneering botanist Kate Furbish (1834-1931). Including some of the more prominent flowers to be found in Maine, plus a few rarities, this delightful gift formatted edition is a treat for the senses and a testament to Kate Furbish’s lifelong passion to record all of Maine's plants and flowers in meticulous watercolor paintings. Color illustrations throughout also with a map of Maine indicating where the flowers were found. Hardcover. 127 pgs.