Mary Q. Steele. Anna’s Garden Songs. Illustrated by Lena Anderson. (New York: Greenwillow, 1989). Illustrations published 1988 in Sweden.

Last weekend I wished I could be in one of Lena Anderson’s idyllic gardens in the Swedish countryside when the heat index climbed up to 110 in central New Jersey.   It was too hot to dig for anything here…Dreaming of  August’s perfect red ripe tomatoes in the shade was more like it.

Imagine wearing a sweater to go to the farmer’s market in the Princeton Junction train station this time of year…  Doesn’t picking out your vegetables in your bare feet in the grass sound like heaven?

Mary Q. Steele. Anna’s Summer Songs. Illustrated by Lena Anderson. (New York: Greenwillow, 1988). Illustrations published 1984 in Sweden.

No one does summer like a Scandinavian artist…