Keep Our World Green: Why Humans Need Gardens, Parks and Public Green Spaces

Written by Frieda Wishinsky

Illustrated by Sara Theuerkauf

Orca Book Publishers

978-1-459838383

96 pp.

Ages 9-12

For release May 13, 2025

 

Tomorrow is Earth Day 2025 and, though Keep Our World Green will not be released for a few more weeks, it's appropriate to speak to the book's messaging about conservation and protection of green spaces and their importance for our physical health, mental health and community.

As long as you have a garden, you have a future, and as long as you have a future, you are alive. ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett

Frieda Wishinsky starts her book with a look at the history of green spaces, whether they be when our ancestors moved from hunting and gathering to growing their own food, or the establishment of gardens. She highlights particular historic ones like the ancient gardens of Egypt and Japan to the classic gardens of Padua and Versailles and gardens from the 20th century, and their value in protecting diversity and endangered species, and in the development of medicines and in celebrating religious beliefs.

From Keep Our World Green: Why Humans Need Gardens, Parks and Public Green Spaces, written by Frieda Wishinsky, illustrated by Sara Theuerkauf

Next, Frieda Wishinsky delves into green spaces of parks that are known for their beauty, from Central Park in New York City to Vietnam's Cat Ba National Park in Vietnam.

From Keep Our World Green: Why Humans Need Gardens, Parks and Public Green Spaces, written by Frieda Wishinsky, illustrated by Sara Theuerkauf

We may get solace and nourishment from these spaces but they also inspire creativity from visual artists, musicians, and writers. There is the famous art of Claude Monet, Frida Kahlo, and Georgia O'Keefe, and the words of poets and storytellers from Henry David Thoreau to E. B. White. Composers like Vivaldi found inspiration in nature as did contemporary musicians like Joni Mitchell and Michael Jackson.

From Keep Our World Green: Why Humans Need Gardens, Parks and Public Green Spaces, written by Frieda Wishinsky, illustrated by Sara Theuerkauf

But our green spaces, both natural and created, are in danger. From our use of chemicals to land development and climate change, our green spaces and their elements, like the bees and birds, are challenged. Frieda Wishinsky has some suggestions for young people as to how they might help based on how others have heeded the call for conservation and environmental protection. Whether you start small with cuttings or planting your own or a community garden, there is always something that a young person, and the adults around them, can do to help keep our world green.

From Keep Our World Green: Why Humans Need Gardens, Parks and Public Green Spaces, written by Frieda Wishinsky, illustrated by Sara Theuerkauf

Frieda Wishinsky presents a varied but comprehensive look at green spaces, whether created by landscape architects, humble home gardeners or the natural world. She celebrates their beauty and their virtues, recognizes their role in keeping us happy, enlightened and healthy, and inspires us to ensure their longevity and security. It's a big order to include all those aspects in a book on green spaces but Frieda Wishinsky, a lover of gardens and parks and natural spaces (see for example, A Flower is a Friend), gives readers enough to whet their interest and how to find more information. (A list of resources is provided.)

 

While many photographs of people and places are used to support the text, Vancouver's Sara Theuerkauf provides illustrations of people and places. She ensures that these green spaces are bustling with life, whether it be of the wild variety, of the humans enjoying the space, or of the green life that exudes its own spirit. 

Depending on where you live, spring may be budding out or imminent, and hopefully we'll all be thinking about what we can do to celebrate the green spaces at home and abroad, and to ensure they are with us for a long, long time. Frieda Wishinsky encourages readers to see the green spaces, to acknowledge their power and importance, and to take actions, even in humble and little steps, to make sure those much-needed gardens, parks and public green spaces continue to flourish and be lauded for what they offer.