The Vegetable Museum

In my family, gardening was something that we did a lot when I was younger. I know that my grandparents also gardened a lot--big rows of vegetables. Rhubarb is the only one I know they grew for sure but I know that there were others that they would can and feed their family with.

My parents passed the tradition on to me. In several of the houses that we lived in we had different kinds of gardens. Sometimes it was flowers...once we had a huge garden thanks to an elderly couple in the area that let us use their land. As we got older, my parents decided the gardening they were best at was square foot gardening where you divide the ground up into smaller areas so that weeding and caring for the plants is easier.

This week I read a book an ARC of The Vegetable Museum by Michelle Mulder which is due to be published March 2019. You can pre-order it here.

Mulder is an established author of several middle grade books and after reading her biography it is easy to see that her ideas come from her own life. She is Canadian and lives in Victoria, BC. She loves the outdoors and helping the environment and I think that this book really stems from that.

Chloe is a thirteen-year-old girl who has to leave behind her home in Montreal when her parents decide to separate. She moves with her dad to Victoria where her grandfather, Uli, lives. Chloe agrees to help Uli take care of his garden.

For decades Uli has collected seeds for different vegetables from people in the community. Some of the seeds have been handed down through generations and come from all different countries. "The result is a garden full of unusual and endangered produce, from pink broccoli to blue kale to purple potatoes."

As the story goes along, Chloe finds herself trying to learn more about her father and grandfather's troubled relationship and trying to find a way to preserve her grandfather's legacy by saving his garden.

I wasn't sure about this book at first. I was worried that it would be mostly about vegetables. Luckily it is! But it's also about a teenage girl, about leaving behind her home, difficulties with parents, multi-generational families, saving the environment, contributing to the community...and so many other things that kids and young adults deal with and want to read about.

I really loved this book because it started out as a simple story but you really find yourself being invested in what happens to Chloe and these precious vegetables that Uli has collected. There is a really fun story along the way. I think it is definitely worth a read!

My only complaint is that the book isn't longer so that I could enjoy even more of Chloe's story!