About the Author

Glenda Millard was born in the Goldfields region of Central Victoria and has lived in the area all her life. It wasn’t until Glenda’s four children became teenagers that she began to write in her spare time. She has been writing full-time since 1999 and has published several books for children. Her first book with Walker Books Australia, Isabella’s Garden, has been awarded Honour Book in the Picture Book of the Year category in the 2010 Children’s Book Council of Australia Awards, and has won a Speech Pathology Australia Book of the Year Award, Best Book for Language Development, Lower Primary Category (5-8 years), 2010; and short-listed the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards Children’s Book - Mary Ryan Award, 2010.

Born in Western Australia, artist and illustrator Rebecca Cool lives on a rural property on the Margaret River, WA with her husband. Rebecca has studied at the Claremont School of Fine Art and has had her work shown at a number of exhibitions. Rebecca is happiest when she is painting and creating her charming, colourful and playful compositions. Her work features a combination of oil pastels and fabric collage, and her strong, colourful works have a naïve charm reminiscent of European folk art. Isabella’s Garden (written by Glenda Millard) is her first book and has received many awards including Honour Book, Picture Book of the Year category, Children’s Book Council of Australia Awards, 2010. Rebecca was also short-listed for the Crichton Award in 2010.

Reviews

The Book Chook has a new favourite picture book. Isabella’s Garden has pushed its way into my heart and mind with beautiful, poetic writing, and eye-popping illustrations.
*The Book Chook*

Rebecca Cool’s superb, folksy illustrations are a riot of colour and beauty, deliciously housing Millard’s text and offering kids the perfect visual casing to this gorgeous book...
*Kids' Book Review*

PreS-Gr 2-In this cumulative poem a la "The House That Jack Built," Isabella plants a garden. Her friends, wide-eyed children standing with their bare feet in the dark soil, help her water and tend it as the sun shines, the rain falls, and the seeds become shoots seeking the sun. They fly kites as Isabella's buttercups "waltz with the wind," and a chick in a thistledown vest hatches from its nest in an apple tree. The children climb the tree "leafy and appled/that speckles the garden with shade, deep and dappled.." The season changes, the leaves turn crimson, and a mantis "prays to the moon/that winter comes never or not quite so soon.." On a splendid pale blue spread, a fanciful Jack Frost appears, "encrusting the garden with glisten and glimmer." Then "all that remains is the well-feathered nest/that was built by the bird with the scarlet breast/and a handful of seeds for the wild wind to blow/Enough, just enough, for a garden to grow." Bright, sumptuous mixed-media spreads have a folk-art quality, while the simplicity of the artwork mirrors the lyrical text. The awe, mystery, and beauty of the changing seasons as experienced by the children make this a must-have book to welcome spring.-Mary Jean Smith, formerly at Southside Elementary School, Lebanon, TN (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

The Book Chook has a new favourite picture book. Isabella's Garden has pushed its way into my heart and mind with beautiful, poetic writing, and eye-popping illustrations. * The Book Chook *
Rebecca Cool's superb, folksy illustrations are a riot of colour and beauty, deliciously housing Millard's text and offering kids the perfect visual casing to this gorgeous book... * Kids' Book Review *