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In Mary's Garden

As a child, Mary Nohl helped her father build a house along the shore of Lake Michigan just north of Milwaukee and was “happiest when her hands were busy making, building, creating things.” Mary grew up to travel all over the world and was captivated by the art in the places she visited. When she came back home to the house she’d helped build, she began to collect found objects on the beach, with the help of her dogs Sassafras and Basil. The things she gathered were part of something bigger—a creature she could see her in imagination and soon set about bringing into being. From cement and supports, “odds and ends, bits and bobs,” a “magnificent creature” emerged in her yard. Wisconsin natives Tina and Carson Kugler introduce young children to an unusual and brilliant artist in this engaging picture book look at one dimension of Nohl’s immense creative outpouring. A note provides additional information about Nohl’s extraordinary art --her home and her yard were her canvas--and efforts to preserve it. ©2015 Cooperative Children's Book Center

Illustrated by Tina Kugler, Carson Kugler

CCBC Age Recommendation: Ages 4-8
Age Range: PreK-Early Elementary (Ages 4-7) Grades 3-5 (Ages 8-10)
Format: Picture book
Subjects: Art and Artists Collecting and Collections Creativity Girls and Women

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publish Year: 2015
Pages: 32
ISBN: 9780544272200

CCBC Location: Non-Fiction, 709 Kugler

In Mary's Garden